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Fasting Doesn’t Affect Kidneys in Healthy People, New Study Suggests

A water bottle is seen next to a student studying at the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) campus in Los Angeles, California, March 4, 2016. REUTERS/Lucy Nicholson
A water bottle is seen next to a student studying at the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) campus in Los Angeles, California, March 4, 2016. REUTERS/Lucy Nicholson
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Fasting Doesn’t Affect Kidneys in Healthy People, New Study Suggests

A water bottle is seen next to a student studying at the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) campus in Los Angeles, California, March 4, 2016. REUTERS/Lucy Nicholson
A water bottle is seen next to a student studying at the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) campus in Los Angeles, California, March 4, 2016. REUTERS/Lucy Nicholson

When people speak about the healthy effects of fasting, they say it benefits all the systems in our body except the kidneys. However, a new study published in the latest issue of the journal Transplantation Proceedings, reports that fasting does not affect kidneys.

It was thought that fasting increase the levels of serum creatinine because of dehydration, which usually indicates a kidney dysfunction. But the new study, carried out by researchers at the Nablus University Hospital, Palestine, found that fasting does not harm the kidneys.

The study involved 58 healthy subjects who were randomly divided into two groups. The hydrated group drank 2 to 3 L of fluid from sunset to the dawn of the next day, while the control group drank fluids in regular amounts. Kidney function was measured before, during, and 1 month after Ramadan.

The researchers found that “Ramadan fasting was not associated with a permanent increase in serum creatinine or urea. For those groups with a high fluid intake, serum creatinine and urea were significantly lower than the controls, suggesting a favorable effect of hydration during the non-fasting hours. This compensated with the dehydration occurring during daylight, as dehydration is responsible for increased concentrations of urea and creatinine.”

“This study adds further evidence that Ramadan fasting does not affect the renal system of healthy subjects; however, fluids should be increased at night, during non-fasting hours,” they added.

For his part, Khaled el-Feki, kidney expert at the Egyptian health ministry, said “the results of this study apply to healthy people and should not be considered for kidney patients.”

“Those patients are advised not to fast because they need to drink fluids constantly. But in case they insist to fast, they should be urged to drink a lot of fluids between sunset and dawn,” he told Asharq Al-Awsat.

“Those patients should also pay attention for some alerting signs and break their fast immediately when they feel swelling in the legs, nausea and vomiting, serious drop in blood sugar and blood pressure, and less or no urine,” he concluded.

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Astronauts from India, Poland, Hungary Launched on 1st Space Station Mission

A Falcon 9 rocket carrying the Axiom-4 crew of four astronauts lifts off from Kennedy Space Center Launch Complex 39A on a mission to the International Space Station, in Cape Canaveral, Florida, US, June 25, 2025. REUTERS/Steve Nesius
A Falcon 9 rocket carrying the Axiom-4 crew of four astronauts lifts off from Kennedy Space Center Launch Complex 39A on a mission to the International Space Station, in Cape Canaveral, Florida, US, June 25, 2025. REUTERS/Steve Nesius
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Astronauts from India, Poland, Hungary Launched on 1st Space Station Mission

A Falcon 9 rocket carrying the Axiom-4 crew of four astronauts lifts off from Kennedy Space Center Launch Complex 39A on a mission to the International Space Station, in Cape Canaveral, Florida, US, June 25, 2025. REUTERS/Steve Nesius
A Falcon 9 rocket carrying the Axiom-4 crew of four astronauts lifts off from Kennedy Space Center Launch Complex 39A on a mission to the International Space Station, in Cape Canaveral, Florida, US, June 25, 2025. REUTERS/Steve Nesius

NASA retiree turned private astronaut Peggy Whitson was launched on the fifth flight to orbit of her career early on Wednesday, joined by crewmates from India, Poland and Hungary heading for their countries' first visit to the International Space Station.

The astronaut team lifted off from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, at about 2:30 a.m. EDT (0630 GMT), beginning the latest mission organized by Texas-based startup Axiom Space in partnership with Elon Musk's rocket venture SpaceX.

The four-member crew was carried aloft on a towering SpaceX launch vehicle consisting of a Crew Dragon capsule perched atop a two-stage Falcon 9 rocket.
Live video showed the towering spacecraft streaking into the night sky over Florida's Atlantic coast trailed by a brilliant yellowish plume of fiery exhaust.

Cameras inside the crew compartment beamed footage of the four astronauts strapped into their pressurized cabin, seated calmly side by side in helmeted white-and-black flight suits as their spacecraft soared toward space.

"We've had an incredible ride uphill," Whitson radioed back to the SpaceX mission control near Los Angeles as Falcon's upper stage delivered the crew capsule to its preliminary orbit about nine minutes after launch.

Dubbed "Grace" by the Axiom crew, the newly built Crew Dragon launched on Wednesday was making its debut flight as the fifth vehicle of its kind in the SpaceX capsule fleet.

It also marked the first Crew Dragon flight since Musk briefly threatened to decommission the spacecraft after US President Donald Trump threatened to cancel Musk's government contracts in a high-profile political feud earlier this month.

TWO-WEEKS IN ORBIT

Axiom 4's autonomously operated Crew Dragon was expected to reach the ISS after a flight of about 28 hours, then dock with the outpost as the two vehicles soar together in orbit some 250 miles (400 km) above Earth.

If all goes according to plan, the Axiom 4 crew will be welcomed aboard the orbiting space laboratory Thursday morning by its seven current resident occupants - three astronauts from the US, one from Japan and three cosmonauts from Russia, Reuters reported.

Whitson, 65, and her three Axiom 4 crewmates - Shubhanshu Shukla, 39, of India, Sławosz Uznański-Wiśniewski, 41, of Poland, and Tibor Kapu, 33, of Hungary - are slated to spend 14 days aboard the space station conducting microgravity research.

The mission stands as the fourth such flight since 2022 arranged by Axiom as the Houston-headquartered company builds on its business of putting astronauts sponsored by private companies and foreign governments into Earth orbit.

For India, Poland and Hungary, the launch marked a return to human spaceflight after more than 40 years and the first mission to send their astronauts to the International Space Station.

The Axiom 4 participation of Shukla, an Indian air force pilot, is seen by India's own space program as a kind of precursor to the debut crewed mission of its Gaganyaan orbital spacecraft, planned for 2027.

The Axiom 4 crew is led by Whitson, who retired from NASA in 2018 after a pioneering career that included becoming the US space agency's first female chief astronaut, and the first woman to command an ISS expedition.

Now a consultant and director of human spaceflight for Axiom, she has logged 675 days in space, a US record, during three NASA missions and a fourth flight to space as commander of the Axiom 2 mission in 2023.

Wednesday's blast-off marked SpaceX's 18th human spaceflight since Musk's privately funded rocket company ushered in a new era for NASA five years ago, providing American astronauts their first rides to space from US soil since the end of the space shuttle era in 2011.

Axiom, a nine-year-old venture co-founded by NASA's former ISS program manager, is one of a handful of companies developing a commercial space station of its own intended to eventually replace the ISS, which NASA expects to retire around 2030.

NASA, besides furnishing the launch site at Cape Canaveral, assumes responsibility for astronauts venturing to the space station once they rendezvous with the orbiting outpost.