Kidney stones illustration. Mayo Clinic researchers found that enriching diets with foods high in calcium and potassium may prevent recurrent symptomatic kidney stones.
Diets Higher in Calcium and Potassium May Help Prevent Recurrent Symptomatic Kidney Stones
Not only can kidney stones cause excruciating pain, but they also are associated with chronic kidney disease, osteoporosis, and cardiovascular disease. If you’ve experienced a kidney stone once, you have a 30% chance of having another kidney stone within five years.
Typically, doctors prescribe changes in diet to prevent recurrent symptomatic kidney stones. Unfortunately, there is little research available regarding dietary changes for those who have one incident of kidney stone formation versus those who have recurrent incidents.
Therefore, Mayo Clinic researchers designed a prospective study to investigate the impact of dietary changes. According to their results, enriching diets with foods high in calcium and potassium may prevent recurrent symptomatic kidney stones.
411 patients who had experienced first-time symptomatic kidney stones and a control group of 384 people participated in the study. Dietary factors were based on a questionnaire administered to the participants, all of whom were seen at Mayo Clinic in Rochester and Mayo Clinic in Florida between 2009 and 2018.
The findings, which will be published today (August 1) in Mayo Clinic Proceedings, show that lower dietary calcium and potassium, as well as lower intake of fluids, caffeine, and phytate, are associated with higher odds of experiencing a first-time symptomatic kidney stone. READ MORE...
