To prevent kidney stones, it is important to drink more water (your urine should be light or clear), maintain a healthy weight, and avoid eating too much red meat. Danila Pyrikov, a nephrologist at the Fomin Clinic network in Moscow, tells Gazeta.Ru about this.
“About 5% of people suffer from urolithiasis. Prevention methods depend on the composition of the stone, but there are general rules. First, you need an adequate drinking regime: a lack of fluid leads to an increase in the concentration of salts in the urine. It is easier for them to turn into large crystals, precipitate, fixate and continue to grow. Therefore, it is important to drink two to three liters of water per day. The urine should be clear or slightly yellowish,” the doctor said.
It is important not to overuse salt and meat, especially red meat, and not to eat more than 1.0-1.3 grams of protein per kilogram of body weight per day. You should also increase your intake of vegetables and fruits and maintain a normal weight: obesity increases your chances of developing kidney stones. Other risk factors include heredity, pathologies of the parathyroid glands, gout, and recurrent urinary infections.
“If there are already stones, for treatment you need to find out the composition of the stone. We can only dissolve urate stones with tablets; the rest are too dense and require physical removal. The surest way is to catch the released stone and take it to the laboratory to study its composition. You can do a CT scan of the kidneys and evaluate the density of the stone. From it we can guess its composition. A daily urine test for lithogenic substances is less informative. The doctor may also prescribe a test for uric acid, calcium, phosphorus, parathyroid hormone and vitamin D,” explained Pyrikov.
