Kidney stones and five tips to prevent them

The National Kidney Foundation estimates that one in ten people will develop a kidney stone sometime in their lives. Kidney stones are lumps that seem like stones in the kidneys, which can cause serious pain. Men are more prone to them than women, and they are most common among 30-60 year olds.

You can get kidney stones and not know it if they are small enough to pass out of you in your urine. Often, they are painful because they get stuck in the urinary system and block the tube connecting the kidney to the bladder or the tube urine passes through out of your body. Or, they can cause an infection.

Symptoms: You might feel an ache in your lower back, groin, or abdomen. You may also feel nauseous. Or, you may need to urinate often and feel pain when you do; there might also be blood in your urine.

Often the stones will pass out of you in your urine. But, you may need to take medications or have them broken up with X-rays or ultrasound in hospital or even taken out through surgery.

Most of us will never get kidney stones. But, if you do, you’re likely to get them again. To avoid them, drink a lot of water and eat a healthy diet. Here are five tips from the U.K’s national health service:

1. Drink lots of water, especially if you sweat a lot. The best way to prevent kidney stones from developing is to make sure you drink a lot of liquids every day, so that minerals that make kidney stones do not settle in the kidneys and urinary tract. Water is good, as is coffee, tea and wine. We’re talking 81 ounces a day, a lot, a lot!!!! But stay away from sugary drinks, which increase your risk of getting kidney stones.
2. Eat and drink foods with calcium and oxalate together. Oxalate-foods, such as nuts and fruits and chocolate are less likely to form kidney stones when you eat them with calcium-rich foods. Low-fat dairy products, whole grains and vegetables are also good. But, avoid beef and processed meats.
3. Eat less food with sodium. Do not eat more than 2,300 milligrams of salt a day.
4. Drink juices high in citrate, like lemons and limes and low in sugar.
5. Eat calcium-rich foods. This might sound counter-intuitive as almost all kidney stones contain calcium.  But, as it turns out, eating a lot of foods with calcium reduces your likelihood of getting kidney stones, especially for men under 60 years old. It also might help you to eat foods rich in magnesium and potassium. Eat foods with 1,000 to 1,200 milligrams of calcium a day.

[Editor’s note: This post was originally published on November 11, 2015 and has been updated.]

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