No I’m not talking about Mick Jagger & Co. This is a post about something much less entertaining (but arguably more important): kidney and gall stones.
In a comment on the Post About Poop, it was pointed out that a vegetarian diet also reduces the risk of kidney stones. Additionally, a vegetarian diet is proven to reduce the risk of gall stones.
Kidney Stones
More than 10% of all people in the US will be effected by kidney stones at some point in their life, which can be very painful. There are different types of kidney stones, forming from various compounds: uric acid stones, calcium oxalate stones, magnesium ammonium phosphate stones, and cystine stones.
Uric acid stones are primarily caused by consuming foods that contain large amounts of substances called purines, which are compounds formed during the breakdown of protein-rich foods, like meat, seafood, and legumes. Calcium oxalate stones can also be formed by consuming animal protein like meat, dairy, and seafood, since these foods increase the excretion of calcium in the urine.
In a study by Bastyr University in Kenmore, WA, ten healthy men between the ages of 21 and 32 consumed their regular diet for two weeks and then were asked to follow three different standardized diets for periods of five days each:
1. A typical Western diet, high in meat, dairy products, and alcohol
2. A balanced protein diet with meat and vegetarian protein sources
3. A vegetarian diet that included dairy products and eggs.
The latter two diets were low in purines and higher in water consumption.
Daily urine samples were collected during each diet period and measured for uric acid content and pH. An increase in uric acid excretion in urine and more acidic pH are known risk factors for uric acid kidney stone development.
Urinary uric acid excretion during consumption of the balanced protein diet and the vegetarian diet was significantly lower, by 12 and 34% respectively, than that measured during the typical Western diet. Urinary pH also increased (became more alkaline) as more vegetarian protein sources were included as part of the diet.
The risk of uric acid crystallization was significantly lower by 85% in the men while eating the balanced protein diet and 93% lower while consuming the vegetarian diet, compared with the risk during ingestion of the Western diet.
Gallstones
Gallstones are a common problem. About one in ten Americans has them. Often times they are harmless and painless, but a painful one can indicate a blocked bile duct and require the removal of the gallbladder, since gallstones do not often pass on their own. 500,000 Americans have their gallbladders removed every year.
Gallstones are crystals that form in the gallbladder (a small pouch under the liver that’s about the size of an uninflated balloon). The #1 ingredient in a typical gallstone is cholesterol that comes from bile, an inky secretion released into the small intestine by the gallbladder to help you digest fats. A buildup of cholesterol in this bile causes stones to form in the gallbladder.
So the first step in preventing gallstones is to tackle cholesterol. A vegetarian diet is ideal because it reduces the amount of cholesterol in bile. This isn’t just because vegetarian diets tend to be lower in fat and cholesterol than the typical American diet. It’s also because all of that healthy fiber in beans, grains and vegetables actually removes cholesterol.
In the digestive tract, fiber absorbs bile secretions, and the cholesterol they contain, and carries them away. Since most Americans don’t have nearly enough fiber in their diets, their cholesterol has nothing to adhere to in the intestinal tract. It recycles back into the bloodstream and back into bile.
Denis Burkitt, MD, the physician who established the value of fiber back in the 1970s, reported that in 20 years as a surgeon in rural Africa, he had to remove only one gallbladder. The Africans’ plant-based, high-fiber diet prevented gallstones by keeping cholesterol in check.
Then in the mid-1980s, researchers found that, compared to meat eaters, vegetarian women were only about one-fourth as likely to need gallbladder surgery. Later studies showed much the same pattern.
A study of over 750 women found the incidence of gall stones to be less frequent in vegetarians. 25% of non-vegetarians compared with 12% of vegetarians had gall stones. After controlling for age and body weight, non-vegetarians were found to have a relative risk of gall stones almost twice that of the vegetarians.
____________________
Breakfast: Granola bar (didn’t hold me over very long – was hungry by 11)
Lunch: Veggie Delight from Subway
Dinner: Lemon risotto (will post recipe on Meatless Monday) with broccoli and cauliflower
4 comments
8 pings
Christina says:
Thursday, February 4, 2010 at 9:59 am (UTC -5)
Thanks for the post! I have cut donw my animal protein in-take to about 2 times a week. I am getting closer!
Susan Owens says:
Thursday, February 4, 2010 at 7:23 pm (UTC -5)
If you are not aware of which foods are high oxalate, it is easy for a vegetarian diet to get too high in oxalate. The medical literature will tell you that being high oxalate puts you at greater risk for kidney stones, but we are finding in our yahoogroup at Trying_Low_Oxalates that many issues that can be chronic clear up when people who have been eating high levels of oxalate pare that down to a low or moderate oxalate diet.
The challenge right now is to identify which plant foods are low in oxalate and high enough in protein to make a vegetarian low oxalate diet work. We actually could use some help in identifying which foods still need to be tested for vegetarians as well as help in getting those foods to the lab for testing, and even, help funding the testing of more vegetarian foods that costs our project $50 per item.
We’d love to invite people here to join us in that mission as we want our site at lowoxalate.info to be helpful to all those who want to be low oxalate regardless of what other restrictions or choices they have made for their diet.
So far, we have found this diet to help those with autism, attention deficit disorder, anxiety and depression, vulvodynia, fibromyalgia, chronic pain of all sorts including bone pain, cystic fibrosis, those who have had bowel surgery or bowel inflammation (including bariatric surgery) and probably Down syndrome, since the trisomy makes it difficult for someone with Down syndrome to detoxify oxalate.
The results of reducing oxalate even a little bit are truly surprising, but easy to discover if you have the information you need.
We seek to make our site the most complete and helpful on the internet for those wanting to do or try the low oxalate diet, no matter what the medical concern.
Please join us!
Susan Owens
Listowner, Trying_Low_Oxalates@yahoogroups.com
http://www.lowoxalate.info
(also head of the Autism Oxalate Project at the Autism Research Institute)
Donations may be given for this project at https://www.autismdonations.com/donate.asp
Issac Mae says:
Monday, February 8, 2010 at 10:06 am (UTC -5)
Absolutely love your blog! Definitely bookmarking it.
vegan recipes says:
Wednesday, February 17, 2010 at 3:29 pm (UTC -5)
Keep up the good work!.
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