Do electrolytes or mineral water cause kidney stones?

Do electrolytes or mineral water cause kidney stones? Let's talk about that.

Finn, be quiet!

God bless America!

Welcome back to the Kidney Stone Diet Podcast, the show about reducing your kidney stone risk and living your best life. I'm your host and fellow student, Jeff Sarris.

You know,

And I'm Jill Harris, your kidney stone prevention nurse. If I sit down, he doesn't talk. If he sees me standing, he's like, "Oh, party time!

Let's go!" So let me sit back down.

Yeah, and that's little Finn over there,

Join- joining in on the show today, so.

I mean, Finn is the most perfect dog, and every dog I've ever had, and every dog anybody has in the world, there's always something. This one,

He is A+, except he does bark for attention, and if anybody in the audience knows how to deal with that, I've talked to a lot of trainers, they all tell me something different and it drives me nuts. So, I don't I don't know what to do about it, but it's highly annoying. All right, so,

We're talking about electrolyte, mineral water, that kind of stuff, right?

Yep.

I hope you're not on YouTube watching, folks, 'cause create- 'cause it's crêpe time. Everything's going crêpe.

All right.

I get this question a lot.

I get this question a lot. See, we just do what we need to do here, folks. I get this question a lot.

So,

Jill,

I'm sorry, I just really like that you were you were talking from the other room, it's just really funny.

Oh, yeah. Well, my voice carries from continent to continent.

Continent. So. Okay, so, electrolytes, mineral water, specifically, I'm going to talk about electrolytes.

I have patients who say, "Jill,

I want to take electrolyte water, because I heard it will just pep me up and make me feel really good. And so I'd like to have that."

And I always say this, "Well, Trixie, are you in a triathlon? Is that Is that Is that Do You Are you depleted? Have Do you exercise?" "Well, no, Jill, I haven't exercised since 1922, but I've heard that electrolyte water is going to make me feel great."

And so, am I a fan of electrolyte water? That would be no. I just think it's a bunch of marketing junk.

Also, a lot of these waters have so much sodium.

And so, what you don't realize because you only read the marketing stuff on the front of the label, you don't realize there's so much sodium in these products, and you don't need it. I mean, I'd almost rather you get more enjoyment from eating, you know, a junkie food, at least you're going to have some fun with it to take too much sodium in.

But getting your water needs met with a lot of sodium, I'm not a fan of it.

Also, people who have CKD, there's extra potassium in these drinks. There's extra everything. They're really made, they're being marketed to the general public, but they're really made for athletes that are having a hard time because they're working out so much or they're in comp- com- competitive, sports that

They're depleted. They need the extra sodium because they're losing so much from sweat, so it's very important for them. Or, they're long-distance runners, right?

And they can't drink every five minutes cause they can't pee, so they're having a lot of salt. They don't want to deplete themselves from electrolytes. It's a real thing.

But the average couch surfer does not need Smartwater.

Also, I will say this,

Some of these electrolyte waters, they're higher in pH.

Common folk, just walking down the street, thinks, "Ooh, higher pH, that's going to be healthy for me." But if you're a calcium phosphate stone maker, it could increase your pH when you already have a high urine pH, which is part of the issue you're making calcium phosphate stones, and that's not good for you, either. So, I think unless you're a competitive athlete,

You don't need

Electrolyte water. That's just my belief. You can come at me in the comments if you wish.

But if you turn it around, Buster Brown, and look at your nutrition label with those waters, you're going to see, in most cases, a heck of a lot of sodium because they are designed for athletes, although they're marketed to everyday folks.

Yeah. Yeah, and this is the reason this came up was turning the bottle around, because I have a friend who recently reached out. He's living in the country of Georgia.

So, he reached out and said he had kidney stones. And I asked if he'd got tested, got a urine collection, tested the stones, all the things. He's like, "Oh, no, no, no.

I know what it was. It's the mineral water I'm drinking." And my immediate thought was, "Oh, well, mineral water alone isn't going to be the culprit." But then he continued to go on because of the sodium content. And I ended up looking up, and Borjomi is the mineral water that's really common and he

Basically lives on this water. When I looked it up, it's 540 mg per 12 o- of sodium. 540 mg of sodium per 12 oz of water, which blew my mind.

I've never seen, yeah, just like a bottle of water that's basically a spring water, a mineral water, that has that much sodium. It just floored me.

So, it's interesting to me. I wonder what made him even look at it. Like, what I wonder what prompted him.

Did he learn that, you know, sodium was an issue? 'Cause he lives in the country of Georgia. I wouldn't think they're, you know,

Talking about kidney stone disease there. But, you know, he's originally from the States, so maybe he just started looking things up. I don't know.

And he just happened to look at his water bottle, right, his mineral water. Very interesting.

Yeah, it's Yeah, I'm not exactly sure how he even, how he put those threads together. The thread together, he did, obviously, see a doctor and everything once he had the stones. But, yeah, it's just wild.

I never expected to see that much sodium in a single 12 oz bottle.

It is amazing. And here's what I say,

I mean, every single day, a million times during the day, please, please, please, whatever you're putting in your mouth, whether it's fluid or foods, you must look at a label. If your product come with comes with a label, it's going to have some sodium in it. Notice that plant food, fruits and vegetables, do not.

And they still have sodium, too, folks. They grow in the ground. There's sodium in the ground, so they're going to have a little bit of sodium.

But I'm just saying if you're eating something with a package,

It's going to have sodium in it. Turn it around, unless you're looking specifically for a low-sodium product. I was talking to a friend of mine.

I took Finn, and that's why I'm like, "Are you really still moving about and barking?" because I took him to the park to play fetch. And on the way, I met a friend. And the friend was like, you know, "I'm really trying-" People always want to talk to me about nutrition, so, you know, and I'm trying to walk my dog.

I don't want to talk about work, quite frankly, but I love him, so we did. And he was like, "I'm really trying to eat healthy,

And Michael and I are eating, you know, Beyond Burgers. We're not We're trying to eat a lot less red meat." But I'm like,

"Garth, turn it around, man. Those packages have what, 800 mg of sodium in those burgers?" "They do, Jill? Boy, you suck!

I'm stop Every time I say something, I'm doing, 'You're like this, this, this.'" Well,

But you don't think about it, right? Those Beyond Burgers, which folks, we have a video on that in this, on this channel. It is beyond processed.

They say "Beyond Beef," it's beyond or "Meat," it's beyond processed. It's so processed. Doesn't mean you can't have one here and there, but don't think that's a healthy food.

So, all the things that we're doing, whether it's from water, electrolytes,

Mineral water, Beyond Burgers, whatever we're doing, I mean, we have to look at the nutrition label. There is no reason why people

Say to me, "You know, I don't know." Because the label is your is giving you everything you need to know. It's all there. Do not read the front of a package.

You need to turn it around and look at what is in that product from water to vegetarian cheese and meats. Please turn it around and look. Look, look, look, look, look, look.

Then you'll learn. You look, you learn, you grow, you move on, right?

Yeah, absolutely. Well, I think that's a great spot to wrap. And very important note, we have a new phone number because we had an issue with our old one, so it's basically the same, but one digit.

So, it's 773-789-8764.

And, unfortunately, we have 200 and what, nine episodes with 8763, but I'm going to see if we can actually recover that number. We had a little issue with our provider, but the number again is 773-789-8764, or you can always email [email protected] where you can send a voice memo, and we'd love to feature you on the show.

Come on, guys, don't be shy. Don't be shy. We love hearing from you.

Absolutely. So, with that, we'll wrap, and we'll see you next week.

Bye, guys.