Obesity and Kidney Stones
They say that passing a kidney stone is the closest a male can come to experiencing natural childbirth (“They” being medical and research professionals). Now, I have been fortunate to never experience either situation (both of my kids made their appearances on this earth after hours of labor resulting in emergency C-sections) so I can’t vouch for either scenario. But, on a technical level the two “circumstances” have analogous engineering and mechanics – but on much different scales. Kidney stones are formed when clumps of urinary crystals solidify in the kidneys- the pain occurs when those jagged little chunks get lodged somewhere along your urinary tract. Although kidney stones seem to be the bane, primarily of males, females are not exempt from this urological plumbing predicament. As in many things, the propensity to develop kidney stones is also partly genetic. So if your father (or perhaps your mom) had kidney stones, then your risk is automatically elevated. If you yourself have had kidney stones in the past, your risks of developing them again are increased. Ok, as we know there’s not much we can do about our genes but we can alter the lifestyle choices that further increase our risk.
In 2010, Johns Hopkins published a research paper in the Journal of Urology on the correlation between obesity and developing kidney stones with a few interesting facts to point out. To clarify, obesity is determined by a Body Mass Index (BMI) weight to height ratio of greater than 30(http://nhlbisupport.com/bmi/). They found that being obese can double your risk of getting kidney stones. But there was NO correlation between the degree of obesity and degree of risk for kidney stones. Another study out of UCLA found the number of people with kidney stones doubled between 1994 and 2010.
Although it is still not completely known how or why these crystals or stones form, DIET is probably the biggest contributor – and the easiest factor to change. Diets that are high in salt and animal derived proteins contribute to kidney stone formation. Coincidentally, this type of diet is often (but not always) linked with obese people. Further to this is the fact that obesity plays havoc on insulin levels and hormone secretions that can support kidney stone formation. If that wasn’t enough, the very fact of being larger puts a strain on the body’s internal organs and in this instance the kidneys tend to extract more crystals from the urine.
Lastly, the reason for the doubled incidence of kidney stones in our population in such a short time is just more evidence that our society is on the obesity fast track. I’m not saying this to be alarmist but if there’s a familial history of kidney stone naissance in your family, you may want to monitor your BMI, watch your salt and meat intake and break a good sweat 3-5 days a week just to be on the safer side. We may not be able to change our family genetics but we can change our lifestyle choices that further increase our health risks.
