Kidney stones: Types and diets
Bernice Clark ▼ | Thursday January 31, 2008 5:02AM ET
Like we said last week, lots of factors are included in stones creation and their recognition is very important in treatment and prevention.

Some diuretics on calcium base can higher risk of stones creation by increasing amount of calcium in your urine. Then, hormonal factors as hyperthyroidism, primary hyperparathyroidism, hypervitaminosis (vitamin D), or Paget's disease, also has a role in stones creation. The way you eat (maybe you don't make a favour to your organism by eating the "wrong" food), climate conditions, urine PH and urination of concentrated urine are contributing factors, too.
Two most important factors in creation of kidney stones are urinary stagnation and infection. Frequent urination delays may cause kidney damage. After first attack doctor must examine the patient, make laboratory tests, check the urine, make abdominal RTG, kidney and ureter ultrasound and a tests that shows exactly the stones size, shape and its position. After your doctor gets all the results and prescribe you a medicaments, he will advice you what to eat depending of your stone composing.
The best defence against kidney stones is drinking lot of water. Water dilutes urine, but it doesn't help the patients that have phosphate and carbonate kidney stones.

Patients who have the oxalate stones are among luckiest ones because this kind of stones rarely appear again. To patients who have too much calcium or oxalate in urine doctor will recommend food that contains less calcium and oxalate. Oxalates are one kind of salt in human urine. Diet includes less of apples, beer, asparagus, cheese, chocolate, cacao, cafe, figs, grapes, ice-cream, milk, orange, peanut butter, pineapple, tea, yoghurt, vitamin C. To those patients doctors will also suggest to eat less spinach, carrots, tomatoes, green beans and broccoli.
Patient that has tendency to produced oxalate stone must consult his doctor for the diet because of the long list of food that is not recommended. In most of the cases that food can be eat in a limited amount, so the best way "not to fight" and be lost in the food list is to consult with a doctor. Because part of oxalate comes from endogenous metabolism, those patients must examine liver, gall tracts and other digestion tract and treat that illnesses.

Diet for cystic stones recommends drinking mineral water in huge amounts to reduce cystine (another kind of salt) which enters urine. That request can sound like "mission impossible" because patients should drink around 4 litres of water, one third of that during the night. Diet also restricts proteins in foods on the smallest level, but only temporarily and for a short time. ■