Drink lemonade to prevent kidney stones

Roger L. Sur, director of UC San Diego Comprehensive Kidney Stone Center, says consumption of lemonade is one of five ways to prevent kidney stones.

Additionally, drinking plenty of fluids can reduce your intake of salt, dietary calcium and protein.

Lemons have the highest concentration of citrate - a natural inhibitor of kidney stone formation - of any citrus fruit.

In a recent study conducted by Sur, lemonade therapy - drinking four ounces of reconstituted lemon juice in two litres of water per day - was shown to decrease the rate of stone formation from 1.00 to 0.13 stones per patient.

Other fruit juices have less citrate and are often supplemented with calcium and contain oxalate, one of the principle components of kidney stones.

In fact, the most common kidney stone is a calcium stone, which is composed primarily of calcium oxalate.

Calcium stones can be caused by too much salt in your diet, which stimulates calcium excretion in the urine, according to Sur, who adds that reducing salt intake helps to prevent such stones.

Some people will not even know that they have a tiny stone in their kidney until it leaves the kidney and enters the ureter, causing intense pain.

Sur said: "Back and abdominal pain, blood in the urine, and nausea or vomiting, are the three classic symptoms of kidney stones.

"You don''t have to have all three, but any of them will come on quickly and be hard to ignore. When you have extreme pain, you should see your doctor or go to an emergency room right away, especially if a fever is present. The presence of fever indicates that you may have an infection in your blood stream which can be life threatening."

Another type of stone, called a uric acid stone is formed from uric acid, a waste product normally passed out of the body in the urine.