CHICAGO — Doctors are puzzling over what seems to be an increase in the number of children with kidney stones, a condition some blame on kids’ love of cheeseburgers, fries and other salty foods.
Kidney stones are usually an adult malady, one that is notorious for causing excruciating pain — pain worse than childbirth. But while the number of affected children isn’t huge, kids with kidney stones have been turning up in rising numbers at hospitals around the country.
At Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, the number of children treated for kidney stones since 2005 has climbed from about 10 a year to five patients a week now, said Dr. Pasquale Casale. Johns Hopkins Children Center in Baltimore used to treat one or two youngsters a year 15 or so years ago. Now it gets calls about new cases every week, said kidney specialist Dr. Alicia Neu.
Dr. David Hatch at Loyola University Medical Center in Maywood, Ill., near Chicago, also has seen an increase. His youngest patient was a cranky 8-month-old girl whose mother found a pea-size kidney stone in her diaper.
So far, the only evidence is anecdotal. But Dr. Uri Alon, director of the bone and mineral disorders clinic at Children’s Mercy Hospital in Kansas City, Mo., is involved in research trying to determine if the increase is real and not just the result of greater awareness and better ways of detecting stones. Alon also is studying whether improved nutrition can prevent kids’ kidney stones.
Eating too much salt can result in excess calcium in the urine. In children, most stones are calcium-based, and Alon said their eating habits, plus drinking too little water, puts them at risk.
Hatch, the Loyola urologist, said the best prevention is drinking plenty of water, so that the minerals in urine stay dissolved.
How much water depends on a child’s size, but for an average-size 10-year-old it would be about four cups a day, on top of whatever else they are drinking. That is far more than most kids drink.
For children who have had one kidney stone, doctors sometimes recommend fresh-squeezed lemonade or other citrus juice, which can help keep urine from forming stones.
