Can Drinking Less Water In Winter Cause Kidney Stone?

As temperatures drop, so does our thirst - a seemingly harmless change that could be setting the stage for a painful health crisis. Recent studies have shown that reduced water intake during winter months may be contributing to a surge in kidney stone cases, with some regions reporting up to a 30% increase in diagnoses during the colder season. We spoke to Dr PS Vali, Head & Senior Consultant Nephrologist, AINU, Dilsukhnagar, Hyderabad, about the same.

He explained how Urol­o­gists and Nephrol­o­gists across the coun­try are sound­ing an alarm on this of­ten over­looked win­ter health risk. “Med­ical ex­perts warn that the short­age of enough wa­ter in the body may con­cen­trate urine, caus­ing the buildup of un­want­ed sub­stances and min­er­als lead­ing to the for­ma­tion of kid­ney stones,” he said.

This win­ter-re­lat­ed de­hy­dra­tion isn't just un­com­fort­able - it's dan­ger­ous. Kidney stones af­fect 1 in 10 peo­ple dur­ing their life­time, with over half a mil­lion amer­icans seek­ing emer­gency treat­ment an­nu­al­ly. The pain of pass­ing a kid­ney stone has been linked to child birth, mak­ing pre­ven­tion cru­cial. The link be­tween sea­son­al changes and kid­ney health isn't new.

Re­search published in the Na­tion­al Li­brary of Med­i­cine re­vealed that uri­nary cal­ci­um lev­els are sig­nif­i­cant­ly high­er in win­ter months for both men and women, in­creas­ing the risk of stone for­ma­tion. This sea­son­al vari­a­tion sug­gests that our bod­ies may re­quire dif­fer­ent hy­dra­tion strate­gies through­out the year.

In­ter­est­ing­ly, the treat­ment of kid­ney stones has a rich his­to­ry dat­ing back to an­cient times. In 600 BC, Sushru­ta, the main physi­cian to the king of In­dia, first re- 2 port­ed stone re­moval via the ure­thra us­ing a splin­t.

This ear­ly med­ical ad­vancement paved the way for mod­ern treat­ments, high­light­ing the long-stand­ing battle against this painful con­di­tion.

How To Prevent Kidney Stones?

Health pro­fes­sion­als rec­om­mend drink­ing at least 2 liters (8 cups) of wa­ter daily, in­creas­ing to 3 liters (12 cups) for those with a his­to­ry of kid­ney stones. This simple habit can dra­mat­i­cal­ly re­duce the risk of stone for­ma­tion by di­lut­ing urine and flush­ing out po­ten­tial crys­tal-form­ing min­er­als.

Be­yond hy­dra­tion, small di­etary changes can make a big dif­fer­ence. Sur­pris­ingly, cal­ci­um-rich foods are rec­om­mend­ed, as they bind with ox­alates in the intestines, re­duc­ing the risk of cal­ci­um ox­alate stones - the most com­mon type. Ad­dition­al­ly, in­creas­ing mag­ne­sium and cit­rate in­take can in­hib­it stone for­ma­tion, with potas­si­um cit­rate of­ten pre­scribed to boost uri­nary cit­rate lev­els and re­duce stone for­ma­tion rates4. As we bun­dle up against the win­ter chill, let's not for­get to hy­drate. Good hydra­tion could keep the kid­ney stones - and the kid­ney doc­tor - away.

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