Kidney stones and mineral water
A Medline Abstract appears below.
Rodgers AL
Effect of mineral water containing calcium and magnesium on
calcium oxalate urolithiasis risk factors.
Department of Chemistry, University of Cape Town, South Africa.
allenr@psipsy.uct.ac.za
Urol Int 1997;58(2) :93-9
Unique Identifier: 97250414
Abstract:
Calcium oxalate kidney stone formers are invariably advised to
increase their fluid intake. In addition, magnesium therapy is
often administered. Recently, a prospective study showed that a
high dietary intake of calcium reduces the risk of symptomatic
kidney stones. The present study was performed to test whether
simultaneous delivery of these factors--high fluid intake,
magnesium ingestion and increased dietary calcium--could reduce
the risk of calcium oxalate kidney stone formation. A French
mineral water, containing calcium and magnesium (202 and 36 ppm,
respectively) was selected as the dietary vehicle. Twenty calcium
oxalate stone-forming patients of each sex as well as 20 healthy
volunteers of each sex participated in the study. Each subject
provided a 24-hour urine collection after ingestion of mineral
water over a period of 3 days; after a suitable rest period the
protocol was repeated using local tap water (Ca: 13 ppm, Mg: 1
ppm). In addition, 24-hour urines were collected by each subject
on their free diets. The entire cycle was repeated at least twice
by each subject. Several risk factors (excretion of oxalate;
relative supersaturations of calcium oxalate, brushite and uric
acid; calcium oxalate metastable limit; oxalate:magnesium ratio
and oxalate:metastable limit ratio) were favourable altered by
the mineral water and tap water regimens but the former was more
effective. In addition, the mineral water protocol produced
favourable but unique changes in the excretion of citrate and
magnesium as well as in the relative supersaturation of brushite
which were not achieved by the tap water regimen. To the
contrary, tap water produced an unfavourable change in the
magnesium excretion. The group which benefitted most were male
stone formers in whom 9 risk factors were favourably altered by
the mineral water protocol. It is concluded that mineral water
containing calcium and magnesium, such as that used in this
study, deserves to be considered as a possible therapeutic or
prophylactic agent in calcium oxalate kidney stone disease.
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September 25, 1997
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