Control of Urine Oxalate Excretion
There is no doubt that urine oxalate excretion is an important factor in calcium oxalate kidney stone production, and that excretion is a very complex outcome of transport in the gut and kidney tubules and, of course, diet calcium intake. We have devoted a lot of energy to refining food oxalate lists and making a reasonable diet plan for oxalate. Here, we have taken on the harder task of reviewing the complex movements of oxalate from food into urine. The intestines not only absorb oxalate from food into the blood, they can secrete oxalate back out from blood into the gut lumen from which it is removed in the stool. The kidneys remove the net of diet oxalate absorbed minus that secreted by a process of filtration and subsequent renal cell reabsorption and secretion of that filtered oxalate. It is as though evolution has handled oxalate like a real hot potato: keep control of how much oxalate the kidneys need to remove and keep control of the blood oxalate concentration. This seems prudent – if one dares to speak this way about evolution – as oxalate can crystallize in blood as it does in urine and both processes can be dangerous. The new work on oxalate transport does not now directly translate into new tests or treatments for patients, but surely will. So I and my brilliant colleague Dr Hatim Hassan – who is the real expert here – have written about the future in medicine. Because the article is very complex and may not get a lot of readers – scared off – I have made a tiny movie to introduce it by way of encouragement.