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Hook, line, and sinker Q: I recently passed a kidney stone -- it was the most excruciating pain I've ever experienced. I've heard that once you have kidney stones, you're more likely to get them again. I don't ever want to go through what I just dealt with again. Is there any way to stop them from recurring?
JVW: Fortunately, there's a lot you can do to keep your kidneys free from stones for good. Vitamin A (not betacarotene) promotes healthy functioning of the urinary tract, so people who are deficient in it sometimes form kidney stones more easily than others. Try taking 10,000 units per day.
Magnesium helps the body dissolve calcium so if you're deficient in this mineral it can cause calcium to accumulate into deposits, which increases your risk of forming kidney stones. Decades ago, Harvard researchers found that taking magnesium along with vitamin B6 can reduce calcium oxalate stone formation dramatically. For kidney stone prevention, I generally recommend 300 milligrams of magnesium citrate and 100 milligrams of vitamin B6 each day.
You won't normally hear me touting a meat-free diet. But vegetarians actually tend to form significantly fewer calcium oxalate kidney stones than meat eaters. There are a couple of obvious reasons. Vegetarian diets include more bulk and fiber, which lowers calcium output. And vegetable protein contains fewer sulfur-rich amino acids than animal protein, and those amino acids promote calcium excretions. I'm not saying you should give up meat entirely, but it will help you to increase fiber sources in your diet, such as root vegetables, and to cut back on how much meat you eat.
Sugar and salt can also increase the excretion of both calcium and oxalate in the urine, so since you have a tendency to form kidney stones, you should definitely limit, if not completely eliminate, sugar and refined carbohydrates from your diet, and cut back a bit on salt. |
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