Jill Harris explains that weight loss itself does not cause kidney stones, but rather the diets people follow to lose weight. Diets like Keto, Paleo, and Low Carb can increase the risk of kidney stones if not followed properly. Jill emphasizes the importance of getting enough calcium to counteract the oxalate intake and avoiding overeating high oxalate foods. She also mentions the role of sodium in kidney stone formation. Overall, the key takeaway is that it’s not the diets themselves that cause kidney stones, but the way people follow them.
Takeaways
- Weight loss itself does not cause kidney stones, but certain diets can increase the risk.
- Diets like Keto, Paleo, and Low Carb can be modified to prevent kidney stones.
- Getting enough calcium is important to counteract the oxalate intake.
- Sodium intake should be reduced to lower the risk of kidney stones.
Jeff Sarris
Does weight loss cause kidney stones? Let’s talk about that.
Jill Harris
If I just hung a shingle on my shack that said weight loss, I would have a very difficult time as a business owner. I would, because people always gain it back.
You see? So when you have an important reason why to lose weight like kidney stones, people never want to experience this again. And it’s not they, what happens is they don’t come to me. Some people are sent to me to lose weight, but, I put them on the Kidney Stone Diet But what happens is people say, I had a kidney stone, I never want to experience that again. And so they do the goals of the Kidney Stone Diet. They change their ways because they never want it.
They just lose weight. Here’s what I hear every day. I wasn’t even trying to lose weight, And the 20 pounds I’ve been trying to get off my whole adult life is gone. I’m actually trying to, you know, make sure I don’t lose any more. Is it magical, folks? Is it Jill the Tooth Fairy with the magic wand? Hell no. Hell no. It’s not that. It’s see, now you have an important reason why. You don’t want a stone again. You don’t want your ureteroscopy again. And God knows you don’t want to stem.
So now you’re paying attention. was your knock knock silly, wake up and stop eating like a five year old. So now, now is the time. So weight loss, weight loss. lot of people will lose weight and they’ll gain a kidney stone. What is it about weight loss that’s causing people to make kidney stones? It’s not the weight loss really. It’s the diets they’re doing to lose weight that’s causing the kidney stone. Think about things like
Keto, Paleo, Low Carb in general, Mediterranean. Dietitians tell patients, you know, eat almonds. They’re diabetic, so eat almonds, eat spinach. So nothing against dietitians. They’re doing their job. But what we healthcare professionals say to patients and what they do, two totally different things, right?
So, let’s start with something like Paleo and Keto. Listen, if you’re doing it, do my patients come to me and say I want to stay on Paleo but also prevent kidney stones and can I help them? That would be yes, of course. We can tweak any lifestyle that you want to do, intermittent fasting. A lot of people come to me with IF, Paleo, Keto, Low Carb, and they’re like, I guess I have to give up my diet. No, you don’t, my lifestyle, no, you don’t. Let’s have a conversation and we’re going to tweak it so it works for kidney stones.
The problem is you guys took almond flour, almond milk, almonds, almonds, almonds all day long, all the time. Low carb and paleo people and keto people are eating the heck out of almond flour. They’re not getting any calcium to combat all that oxalate and you couldn’t even. The only calcium they’re getting is from almond milk, so that’s not working. And there’s your problem.
Spinach is very big in these diets too. So people are overeating the highest oxalate foods also with keto and paleo. Nobody’s paying attention to sodium. My vegan friends with all their artificial vegan products. So high in sodium. And sodium is huge in the kidney stone world and in blood pressure, cardiovascular disease, everything, diabetes. We want you to lower your sodium.
So then you pee more obviously. But also when we eat too much sodium, it can pull calcium from your bone, which will increase your risk for osteoporosis. And then that excess calcium goes into the urine. And when we have too much calcium in our urine, oxalate and phosphate can connect to calcium and form a stone, especially if we’re not peeing a lot. So these diets themselves, it’s not the diet themselves. It’s the way in which the patient did the diet, overeating the highest oxalate foods, not getting enough calcium, eating too much salt, and there you go, it’s a perfect storm. Also, with keto and paleo, way overeating meat products. And so those patients can tend to make uric acid stones or a combination uric acid and calcium oxalate stones. So it’s not that those lifestyles cause kidney stones themselves. It’s the way patients do them.
And even keto websites will say, hey, this diet, there’s research that says we studied keto, it will increase the risk of kidney stones. I don’t love how that’s phrased simply because it’s not saying that it’s the way patients are doing the diet. So again, if you find other flours to use besides almond flour, and if you stop eating, you can do paleo but you just can’t eat as much meat as you want. You have to get rid of spinach. You just have to get more in moderation with what you’re doing. And all of these diets, you a whole 30 is another one. You know, get rid of dairy. So, you know, which is fine. You don’t need dairy to get your calcium needs met. But in none of these diets, in none of these lifestyles, is anyone talking about getting normal amounts of calcium, not getting calcium needs met. Nobody talks about that until we get bone disease or kidney stones. And even lots of times in the kidney stone world, no one’s talking about getting enough calcium to lower your urinary tract. So it’s not the diets themselves. It’s the way people do diets. And call after call throughout my days, here’s what I hear. I do an extensive medical history on people and an extensive what your lifestyle has been and maybe three out of five calls will say, Jill, I watched your guys’ YouTube channel. I know what I’m gonna tell you what I did. They act like they’re getting in the confessional and saying, forgive me Father for I have sinned. Because I I overate all the almonds, Jill, and all the spinach. You know, I was trying to watch my blood sugar, so I was eating almonds all day long. Nobody ever says, honey.
Come on, we’re gonna watch our show. Just get me one almond, just one or two tops. No one says that. They get the jar. Usually it’s from, but Jill, I was using the unsalted jar from Costco. The big jar was unsalted, but geez, Jill, I just took the whole jar next to my lazy boy. Had it on the little table next to me, I would just eat it the whole night long. So people overdo eating nuts. And certainly you can still eat nuts on the Kidney Stone Diet. You just have to get away from the highest ones like cashews and almonds.
In the meal plan, I’m always using nuts. I just don’t use a lot of them. So it’s always about portion and I will say in the meal plan, in those recipes, make sure you’re getting enough calcium every day to counteract the oxalate you’re eating. Okay? So it’s not that the diet itself causes kidney stones. If you want to do paleo, you can do paleo. If you want to do low carb, you certainly can do that. If you want to do Mediterranean, you can do that.
Can do any diet, keto, any diet you want. But you gotta fit whatever you’re doing into the Kidney Stone Diet goals and you can find the Kidney Stone Diet goals at kidneystonediet .com. You fit into that goals and enjoy your lifestyle. IF, intermittent fasting, sure. I mean, do it. You can do it. I just worry about the spacing of the calcium sometimes, but it’s all doable. And that’s when you want to book a private consult because it is complicated when you have other things going on, how to fit this all together. So that’s what I do all day long. I help people figure out how to take their current lifestyle that they’re very happy with, by the way, and mold it into the Kidney Stone Diet.
Jeff Sarris
Yeah. I mean, I think I don’t even want to add to that. So I think that was a perfect wrap up of everything, because it is so important to understand. I like to always say that health, more healthy food doesn’t make you more healthy necessarily.
Jill Harris
As kidney stone patients really know that, right?
Jeff Sarris
I think that’s a perfect spot to wrap. So if you have any questions, the number again is 773-789-8763, and we will see you next week.
Jill Harris (08:33)
Yeah, and in the comments, right? Did one of your lifestyle diets, did it cause a kidney storm? Let us know about it in the comments and have a beautiful week everybody. Bye.
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