Flashback Friday: How to Prevent and Treat Kidney Stones with Diet

Interventional studies support the population data that animal protein consumption appears to markedly increase the risk of kidney stones. A diet with decreased animal protein and sodium intake appears more effective in treating calcium oxalate and uric acid kidney stones (nephrolithiasis) than restricting calcium or high oxalate foods.

Anyone want to try to calculate their LAKE score for the day? Just multiply the number of servings you have of each of the food groups in the graph times the score. I got -79 for my diet yesterday—beat that! :)

For more on kidney health, see for example:

Thanks for watching. I hope you’ll join in the evidence-based nutrition revolution!
-Michael Greger, MD FACLM

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[kitt]

I had to have emergency surgery when i was 18 because of kidney stones. I had two very large stones blocking both of my ureters and i could not pee.

My first episode with stones started when i was only 14. I went to the ER, they told me it was a stone and it would pass. I obviously didn't know anything about kidney stones so every now and then when i would have pain, i didn't think i needed to go to the hospital since they didn't do anything for me the first time. I never knew that i didn't pass the stone. Nobody told me what to expect or that it might possibly not pass.

Fast forward to when im 18, i had no idea that stone has been blocking my kidney for 4 years. And now the other side is blocked due to another massive stone.

I have the surgery, and when i go back to see my dr. he tells me what a kidney stone is and that it's made of calcium. I asked him, "what does that mean? Am i not supposed to drink milk or something?" And he said, "oh no, no. It doesn't work that way. " he never gave me any kind of diet do's and don'ts. I went back for a check up six months later and had ANOTHER surgery because i was forming stones again. He said because of my bad history with stones, he recommended they be taken care of now. Having surgery six months apart is not normal at 18!

And for YEARS i would try to Google it and figure out why i had stones. I didn't drink soda, i didn't drink coffee. It made no sense and I was WAY too young to be having those problems, especially to the degree that i had them! All i ever found was "don't eat spinach, don't eat rhubarb." Im sorry but who the heck has a problem eating too much rhubarb??? Who is that information even for?

Thankfully, i made my way to vegetarianism for other reasons. And a few years after that i finally found something online about animal protein and uric acid (I think i was reading about gout). Finally, everything made sense! I googled animal protein and kidney stones and boom! There it was! All my answers! When i was younger i definitely ate too much meat. Chicken nuggets where my go to snack back then.

Im happy to say, I've only passed one SMALL stone since then and that's probably because i switched back to eating chicken and fish for a short time. I rarely eat meat now and mostly eat vegetarian. Probably at least 98% vegetarian and i haven't had issues since!

[veganatheistwitch]

I've been vegan for four years and gluten free for sixteen years and at least 80% of our diet (if not more) is WFPB. I still developed a kidney stone while I was pregnant with my daughter this last year. There are other risk factors like hormones as well.

[shaunmichaels]

I am so glad I turned vegan 8 months ago :)

[eelkeaptroot]

I mentioned this information at some point to some kidney stone sufferers and they looked at me like they were passing one...

[CampMelp]

I was vegan for 5 years, reintroduced meat, got recurring kidney stones for 5 years, and nobody NOBODY mentioned this to me. My urologist just told me I needed to drink less caffeine. I had lithotripsy on one side and a basket removal on the other, and had to have a stent placed following the surgery. The whole ordeal was literally the most painful experience of my life, and I’ve had two c-sections.

Thank goodness I connected the dots on my own (finally), and went fully plant-based again. No more problems. I’m limiting super-high oxalate foods anyway, though I am not convinced, as some websites would recommend, that cutting them out ENTIRELY is necessary. I still drink some tea and eat some spinach, they’re just not staples.

[ceramictiletonight]

I have had kidney stones since I was in my twenties. In my case, I was a mason who mainly worked on jobsites without running water and when I did drink something, 90+% of the time I drank soda for thirst. During the day I would sweat out whatever water was in me only to replace it with soda or coffee and my urine was super concentrated (4:08 of your video)and I had debilitating uric acid stones (5:30 of this video). The last one I had was the size of a 30 caliber bullet. I have cured my problem with a product from StoneLabs and drinking water all day long. I think the product is called stonebreaker by StoneLabs.

[nurmagobobthegov]

Thanks for the wake up call. Need to cutback on redmeat consumption.

[lloydhlavac]

I had a kidney stone several years ago. Ungodly painful! After researching it, and the causes, I figured it was caused by all the high oxalate foods I was eating at the time, like spinach, beet greens, Swiss chard, peanuts, and 100% cacao. Changed some of the food for lower oxalate ones, plus also started drinking lemon water and supplementing with both potassium and magnesium citrates. Also drinking a lot more water to flush things out. Haven't had a problem since. Whew!

[michaeltillery]

I call BS on Dr Greger on this. Uric acid stones are caused by high protein diet. Calcium oxalate stones are caused by high oxalates and too little calcium. I was on a whole food plant based diet for 2 1/2 years, following Nutrition Facts protocols, and guess what? I developed, in a relatively short period, a 1 cm calcium oxalate stone. The foods I were consuming are the highest oxalate containing foods: spinach, beets, lentils, beans, nuts, etc. So, it wasn’t caused by eating a diet high in animal protein. Just the opposite. I am no longer vegan, and I avoid those high oxalate foods.

[sharit]

Thanks for doing the research and [re]posting! Avoiding excruciating pain...yet 1 more reason to eat only plants!!

[gvas]

Awesome info.
Thank you for sharring this👍

[veronicalacrosse]

This is beautiful Doctor! Great work! 👏

[snakeb]

But you have another video saying 8 servings of spinach a month increases risk by 30%.

[naturesbliss]

I have been plagued w/ kidney stones since I was 21 years old. I've had 10 episodes. My last one was 5 years ago. Each time I had one, I had to have it surgically removed. Sadly another one has recently appeared. It is small and the doctor thinks I can pass it on my own, ( I hope so). But I do have a question, can apple cider vinegar help in the treatment and elimination of kidney stones? Thanks for the video, good timing.

[pickledbeaker]

Kidney stone? looks to me like superman's secret hideout

[pureland]

Great info as always... please could you do a video on this latest Celery Juice craze? 🙏🏻

[tinedriessen]

Please people, help me comment about the relation between a diet high in animal protein and kidney stones on the video 'the most painful thing a human can experience?? Kidney stones'. The maker of the video talks about avoiding beans and spinach and does not talk about animal protein, so help me get this on people's radar.

[tamcon]

6 "carnivore" diet cultists disliked this video already. Thanks for this refresher on what the actual science tells us, NF!

[ninbin]

i'm a bit confused :( dr, berg had such a video published yesterday and he said that parsley has a lot of oxalates. so you have to consume a lot of lemon juice to combat the risk of kidney stones. nothing is safe to eat. nothing except kale :))

[saffira]

Can you talk about restless leg syndrome. It's something I've had for around 20yrs and it's gotten worse over the yrs.