Women have more and more kidney stones. The fault in industrialized countries lies mainly in food. Based on an interview with Vincent Estrade, urologist, Angoulême hospital and Bordeaux CHU.
Parity also wins this disease: a few years ago, men were frankly more numerous to have kidney stones than women: there were 2.7 men for every woman; today, they are only 1.6 men for 1 woman. In industrialized countries, the first reason is food. We eat too sweet, too salty and too much animal protein like meat. And best of all, we don’t hydrate enough! Not drinking enough causes the urine to concentrate in calcium oxalate, the main provider of stones: the excess sugar turns into oxalate and the salt also in excess causes too much calcium to be found in the urine, and oxalate and calcium will crystallize to give stones. In addition, we also eat too much animal protein, which will cause hypercalciuria, and therefore the calcium will crystallize with the oxalate present in the urine, naturally.
In addition, there are now quite frequent uric acid stones, also linked to our lifestyle and our diet, which means that many men will now develop what is called a metabolic syndrome: arterial hypertension, obesity, increased waist circumference. All of this will lead to a change in urinary acidity and crystallization of uric acid stones.
So the main cause of renal lithiasis is modifiable dietary errors … and it will be essential to start to avoid recurrence once the crisis has passed.
Beside these causes, there are certain diseases which lead to stones like hyperparathyroidism. There are also hypercalciurias which give stones, as well as hyperphosphaturia. And if the cause of this hypercalciuria is not sought, very often, the skeleton may suffer because it will lose its calcium store. Thus, osteoporosis is likely to occur in men or women who could have been diagnosed before their appearance.
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