Is fructose causing an epidemic of kidney stones in kids?
They can feel like tiny razor blades are working their way through your back or stomach. The pain can be so excruciating that sometimes even morphine won’t touch it.
It’s the kind of thing you wouldn’t wish on your worst enemy — let alone a small child.
But doctors are warning that the number of young children coming down with kidney stones is going through the roof. Some kids are even being wheeled in for surgery to have their stones removed.
It’s a problem that seems to be getting worse every year. And the culprit may be a dangerous sweetener I’ve been warning you about for years.
Now they’re treating them all the time, according to pediatric urologist Dr. Gregory Taisan.
One of those children is Victoria Tappan, who was just 12 years old when she was rushed to the hospital with her first kidney stones. The poor girl has had six surgeries to remove stones since.
Dr. Taisan and his colleagues recently pored through 15 years’ worth of medical records on more than 150,000 patients. And they found that the rate at which kids are getting kidney stones is increasing nearly 5 percent every single year.
So what’s changed between 30 years ago — when you practically had to be at least 40 to have a kidney stone — and now?
Kids are eating more fructose than ever.
I’ve told you before how processed fructose — like high fructose corn syrup — can cause everything from liver damage to aggressive cancer.
And it looks like you can add kidney stones to the list.
You see, there are basically two types of kidney stones — ones that are made of calcium and oxalate and ones that are crystallized uric acid.
But fructose doesn’t discriminate. It can cause both.
Processed fructose (such as HFCS, not what you’ll find in fruit) can cause your body to produce high levels of both oxalate and uric acid, which can send your kidney stone risk skyrocketing.
And this isn’t exactly new information, either. One big study out of Harvard two years ago found that people who drink soda, which is usually loaded with HFCS, have a 33 percent higher risk for developing kidney stones.
HFCS has only been in the food supply since the 1970s, which may explain why a generation or two ago kids never got kidney stones.
But these days, HFCS and other types of processed fructose are everywhere. You’ll find fructose in everything from soda to cookies to even certain types of pickles.
Even drinks you might think are healthy, like Vitamin Water, contain crystalline fructose — a sweetener that’s 99 percent fructose. That makes it even higher in fructose than HFCS!
Whether we’re talking about kids or adults, once you have a kidney stone there’s a 50 percent or greater chance that you’ll have another one in the next five years. And none of us want to go through an ordeal like that again.
That’s why, along with avoiding fructose like the plague, these three tips can help prevent another kidney stone incident — whether you’re 8 or 80!
- Drink more water — but make sure it’s the real deal, the old-fashioned kind that isn’t sweetened.
- Take magnesium and B6 supplements, which have been found to cut the chances of a painful kidney stone recurrence by up to 90 percent.
- Stock up on phytate-rich foods, like whole grains, nuts, seeds and beans. Research out of Harvard found that they can lower your risk of kidney stones by almost 40 percent.
Sources:
“Rising rate of childhood kidney stones drives push for school water access” Samantha Melamed, January 15, 2016, <i>The Philadelphia Inquirer</i>, philly.com
