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Eating more vegetable protein could help extend the lives of kidney disease patients, according to a new study.

Researchers explain that kidney patients suffer poor kidney function, and toxins that are normally excreted in urine can accumulate in their blood. Vegetable protein intake in patients is linked with lower production of toxins compared to animal protein.

However, it is unclear whether eating more vegetable protein prolongs the lives of chronic kidney disease patients.

The latest study involved 1,104 chronic kidney disease patients in the 1988-1994 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey III. Patients were asked about their animal and vegetable protein intake.

After accounting for various factors like age, smoking and BMI, researchers found that participants had a 14 percent lower risk of dying by the end of 2006 for each 10-gram increase in vegetable protein intake per day.

"Interventional trials are needed to establish whether increasing vegetable protein will decrease mortality in the CKD population," researchers wrote in the study.

The findings were presented at ASN Kidney Week 2013 November 5-10 at the Georgia World Congress Center in Atlanta, GA.