No one knows quite why, but the number of Americans diagnosed with kidney stones has been increasing over the past 20 years, according to the National Institutes of Health.
Like the tree that falls in the woods when nobody's around, often a kidney stone will form but then just pass out of one's body (and one's brain is never the wiser). It's when the stone begins to feel like a boulder in the belly that the trouble begins.
A kidney stone is neither a boulder nor a beach pebble, of course. Rather, it's small, hard mass developed from crystals that don't get washed away with urine as it travels through the urinary tract. When that stone lodges in the wrong place, causes infection, damages the kidney or causes bleeding, the pain can be excruciating.
Getting a kidney stone is nothing new, and it's certainly not a function of dissolute modern life. Scientists diagnosed the condition in a 7,000 year old Egyptian mummy. But that fact is small comfort for the quarter of a million Americans a year who get hospitalized with this condition. According to government statistics, in a given year over a million people visit health care providers with discomfort caused by kidney stones. And while generally not life-threatening, "stones" as they are sometimes called, can be terribly painful, and the symptoms, including blood in the urine, frightening. It's worth taking the trouble to avoid it.
Actually, there is something that people can do to help prevent getting kidney stones: drink up. Drinking plenty of liquids, preferably water, is the what the experts call the a "simple and most important lifestyle change." Other precautions include diet and lifestyle changes.
Who Gets Kidney Stones
One in 10 Americans will have a kidney stone at some point in their lives. Some people are at higher risk than others. The National Kidney and Urologic Diseases Information Clearinghouse says, "While certain foods may promote stone formation in people who are susceptible, scientists do not believe that eating any specific food causes stones to form in people who are not susceptible." Among those at risk for developing stones are:
- people with a family history of developing kidney stones
- men (they're more vulnerable than women to this condition but women get kidney stones, too)
- racially, white rather than black, and
- people who've had a kidney stone before (once a person gets one kidney stone, the risk of their getting more stones increases).
Ask older relatives whether this condition runs in the family. If so, it might save considerable anxiety to learn a bit more about kidney stones.
Key Facts about Kidney Stones
Some more important facts about kidney stones include:
- Kidney stones contain various chemicals, only one of which is calcium.
- Calcium stones are the most common, but not the only type of kidney stone.
- A gallstone is not a kidney stone, nor vice versa. According to the experts at NIH, getting one does not predispose a person to getting the other.
How Can Diet Affect Kidney Stones?
Having kidney stones can be annoying, time-consuming, painful and expensive. So, if a person has already had one or more, what dietary precautions can be taken to avoid getting another one? General recommendations from the NIH include the following:
- Drink a lot of liquids, especially water (those who form stones should drink enough to produce two quarts of urine every 24 hours). Avoid grapefruit juice and dark colas.
- Eating dairy products is fine (and helpful), but don't take calcium pills.
- Talk to the physician about cutting back on certain other foods (but not omitting them altogether). Specifically, beets, chocolate, coffee, cola, nuts, rhubarb, spinach, strawberries, tea and wheat bran may need to be eaten in moderation.
- Avoid salty foods such as hot dogs, canned soups, fast food, take out foods, and high-sodium soy.
- Limit alcohol consumption to two drinks—two 12-ounce servings of beer or two 5-ounce servings of wine or two 1.5-ounce servings of hard liquor a day.
- Discuss any dietary supplements with the physician.
- Find out more about what doctors say people with kidney stones should, and should not eat.
Treatments for Kidney Stones
Treatments for a kidney stone, according to the NIH booklet "Kidney Stones in Adults" (available online), may include medications or diuretics; one commonly prescribed diuretic is hydrochlorothiazide. Surgery is an option of last resort when other approaches cannot be tried or have failed; for instance, if the stone doesn't pass on its own, is too large to pass on its own, or is causing internal damage. Stubborn kidney stones are often treated with shock waves that break down the stones. This procedure is called ESWL, for "extracorporeal shockwave lithotripsy."
For information, in addition to consulting one's physician, check the National Kidney and Urologic Disease Information Clearinghouse Web site, or call 1-800-891-5390. Meanwhile, to prevent a recurrence of kidney stones, watch the diet—and drink up.
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