What Causes Kidney Stones?

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Whether or not you know much about kidney stones and what causes them, you certainly know they’re unpleasant. You’ve never heard anyone speak with excitement about theirs, and you likely never will. Kidney stones are a touchy subject, and an uncomfortable health issue that can happen to just about anyone, though it’s far more common in some people than it is in others. While there’s no single, definitive cause of kidney stones, there are many things that can cause them and/or increase your risk of developing them.

What Causes Kidney Stones?

The answer is quite simple; kidney stones form in your body when your urine begins to contain more crystal forming substances than your body is able to dilute. This causes the substances to stay put and form kidney stones. Additionally, if your urine lacks the ability to keep the crystals from attaching to one another, your risk of developing kidney stones increases significantly.

Increased Risk Factors

If you’d like to prevent your body from developing these very painful kidney stones, you’ll need to know what puts you at risk. Calcium stones are caused by an over intake of calcium in your diet. These are the most common type of kidney stone and they can occur when your liver produces too much calcium and your diet contains too much Vitamin D.

If you have frequent urinary tract infections, you can develop something called a struvite stone. These stones are common after frequent infections. The real issue is that they grow very quickly, becoming very painful, very quickly with few – if any – warning signs.

If you have gout, eat a high-protein diet or you don’t take in enough fluids, you are at risk for developing uric acid kidney stones. These can also be caused by certain genetic inheritance and other kidney related diseases, but that’s something you’ll want to discuss with your doctor. Cystine stones are also genetic; they occur to people who have inherited a gene that causes your kidneys to produce too many amino acids.

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