DIET PROTEIN AND POTASSIUM AND KIDNEY STONE RISK
Gary Curhan and Eric Taylor have given us many insights into how diet might influence kidney stone risk. I think this new article by them and their colleagues a great opportunity for close reading and practical use of a high quality research paper remarkably germane...
HOW POTASSIUM CITRATE PILLS WORK
This article is long and complex but I think patients will want to trouble themselves to read it. It tells the story of how our diet in the US, Europe, and urban Asia imposes an acid load which the kidneys must remove. That demand forces them to conserve citrate which is a natural defense against kidney stones. The pills neutralize the diet acid, and release the kidneys from their lifelong task of compensating for how we eat. That is why the urine citrate can rise. Removing acid is a major task that affects how kidney cells work. The humble potassium citrate pills have massive and probably beneficial effects on those cells. Of course, diet could the same as the pills, but how can one pursue a diet against the tendencies of the culture? Even with a will, most of us could not get it right – the balance of food, a proper nutrition. I could not advise we try.