Causes and prevention of kidney stones: separating myth from fact

Alaina Garbens, Margaret S. Pearle

Research output: Contribution to journalReview articlepeer-review

2 Scopus citations

Abstract

Despite high-level evidence supporting the use of pharmacotherapy therapy for the prevention of kidney stones, adherence to medications is often poor because of side-effects, inconvenience and cost. Furthermore, with a desire for more ‘natural’ products, patients seek dietary and herbal remedies over pharmacotherapy. However, patients are often unaware of the potential side-effects, lack of evidence and cost of these remedies. Therefore, in the present review we examine the evidence for a few of the commonly espoused non-prescription agents or dietary recommendations that are thought to prevent stone formation, including lemonade, fish oil (omega fatty acids), Phyllanthus niruri and the Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension (DASH) diet. While the present review includes only a few of the stone-modulating recommendations available to the lay community, we focussed on these four due to their prevalent use. Our goal is not to only dispel commonly held notions about stone disease, but also to highlight the lack of high-level evidence for many commonly utilised treatments.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)661-666
Number of pages6
JournalBJU international
Volume128
Issue number6
DOIs
StatePublished - Dec 2021

Keywords

  • #KidneyStones
  • lemonade and stone disease
  • medical management of stone disease
  • natural remedies and stone disease
  • nephrolithiasis
  • stone recurrence

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Urology

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'Causes and prevention of kidney stones: separating myth from fact'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this