Number Of Kidney Stones Doubles

The ache of a kidney stone is stunningly painful. And so is the recent increase in the number of kidney stones we’re developing.

Research at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) shows the number of Americans doubling over from kidney stones doubled in the past 20 years.

“While we expected the prevalence of kidney stones to increase, the size of the increase was surprising,” says Charles D. Scales  Jr., M.D., a researcher at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA. “Our findings also suggested that the increase is due, in large part, to the increase in obesity and diabetes among Americans.”

Scales and his colleagues reviewed responses from 12,110 people and found that between 2007 and 2010, 8.8 percent of the U.S. population had a kidney stone, or one out of every 11 people. In 1994, the rate was one in 20. No data about the national prevalence of kidney stones in the United States were collected between 1994 and 2007.

Because the survey also asked about other health conditions and includes measurement of height and weight, the researchers were able to identify associations between kidney stones and other health conditions. The results suggest that obesity, diabetes and gout increase the risk of kidney stones.

The authors assert that these findings have important implications for the public as well as healthcare providers. “People should consider the increased risk of kidney stones as another reason to maintain a healthy lifestyle and body weight,” says Christopher S. Saigal, M.D., M.P.H., senior author of the study. “But physicians need to rethink how to treat, and, more importantly, prevent kidney stones.”