Does cranberry juice help prevent kidney stones?

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Welcome back to the Kidney Stone Diet Podcast, the show about reducing your risk for kidney stones and living your best life. I'm your host and fellow student, Jeff Sarris, and I'm here, as always, with Jill Harris. What's up, Jill?

Hello, everybody. It's good to be here.

Yeah, so we are going with one of the, I won't say hot topics, but one of the things that people are very curious about in cranberry juice. So, does cranberry juice actually help when you have kidney stones?

Nah!

Okay, end of episode, see you next week!

But people are But people want to know, though, but it's a great question. So, you know, but for UTIs, sometimes doctors will say, drink some cranberry juice. Now, there's not enough science to say that a cranberry juice cocktail, and don't have the cocktails cuz there's a lot of added sugar in those,

But there's there's not enough science that says cranberry juice is going to help prevent UTI. And it's certainly not going to help once you have one. So, you know, we've always got to be careful of these I'm not going to go in as far to say that this is an old wives' tale, but a lot of things our grandma has said or our mom has said, you know, sometimes we've got to think

Is cranberry juice doing something for me? Let me see if there's any kind of valid source that says cranberry juice is good for kidney stones. And valid I mean like the major guys, like guys and gals, I don't want to be sexist, Harvard, University of Chicago, Mayo Clinic, not WebMD, not, you know, sweet mama, sexy

Babies, none of that,.com. You want to look, Penn, you know, the big the big boys and girls, in the medical field, so that's where you want to go. And a lot of them will address things like this.

So, cranberry juice for an existing UTI? Absolutely not. Cranberry juice as a prevention to the UTI?

Not enough science.

If you're use- for stone disease, no. Cranberry juice in general, if you wanted to have it as part of your daily fluid intake, sure, have it, but get the least amount of sugar. I will go as far to say as have a little bit of splash of cranberry in your water, okay?

To flavor it. Typically, those kinds of things are very high in sugar, so turn it around, Buster Brown, look at what the added sugar is in beverages other than water. Always turn it around, you're going to be shocked.

One soda, one can of Coke is over the added amount of sugar, 37 grams, I think, is in a can of Coke. 37 g of added sugar is in a can of Coke, that's more than the 25 g of added sugar a woman is allotted each day, and men are supposed to get no more than 37.5, I give them the extra half, 38 g of added

Sugar a day. One soda, people, don't do it, put it down. Might as well smoke a cigarette, no, don't do that either, but it's terrible for you, so please, okay?

So, always look at your juices and any kind of beverage that's not water and see if there's added sugar, and if so, how much, and can it fit into your kidney stone diet goal for that day.

Yeah, adding a splash to water, I've actually really I enjoy Topo Chico, so the sparkling mineral water with like a little cranberry juice in it. It's just a nice refreshing drink.

Yes, it's festive.

Yeah.

It's festive, right? It's something different. We all need a variety, you know, and I have a nice little article, if you Google it, A Taste for Variety and it's on Dr.

Coe's website about all the fluids we can drink. And as a matter of fact, you can you can you can drink pretty much anything, again, if you don't overdo it. So, you know, alcohol, you can have alcohol and not make kidney stones, you just can't drink a six pack every day, okay?

And there's wives' tales about beer. "Jill, my uncle, he sat in the tub with his clothes on and a tiara, and he drank a six pack of beer, and that beer flushed it right out." Well, was it the beer or was it he just was drinking a lot? The water would have done the same thing, okay?

So,

I'd say it's the tiara. I'm pretty sure that's that's what did it.

It could have been the tiara. Who knows, it could have been the tiara. There's no science, so we don't really know.

How about that, Jeff? All right, I'm done.

Oh yeah, so actually in terms of yeah, like potions and like the trickery maybe not trickery, but the things like assuming cranberry juice, what are some of the other big ones that people talk about? I know apple cider vinegar, which we talked about in an entire episode.

Yeah, that's been a show. Chanca Piedra, I never know how to say that. It's a It's a pill you can take and it literally means stone breaker.

That will not break up stones, and people will say, "Oh, I passed a stone after taking it." You know, was the stone already on its way out and you were also drinking a lot of water with that supplement? I mean, you know, again, I know some of you will say, "Oh, my god, the science." I'm just saying

As a nurse, I can't promote any of those things unless we know that there's science backing it up, saying it works. If your aunt took it and her stone fell out of part, I'm going to always push back. Was it the Chanca Piedra or was it she was moving around, she was drinking her fluids, and that stone was just ready to pass?

Nothing is going to break up a stone. Think about it, guys. I mean, lots of times you get lasered and it won't even break up your stone, they're that hard.

So, the only stone that can be broken up

With a med is uric acid stones. They can be broken up when we alkalinize your urine. So, typically, uric acid stones are made because your urine is acidic.

Those crystals thrive in that environment, and when we make the urine a little bit more alkaline with potassium citrate, we can break up those stones. But that's the only stone, and most stones are calcium oxalate, so no supplement is going to break up a stone. Please know that and save your save your pennies, okay?

I hate to I hate for people to spend their money thinking they're going to find a fix for something when they're sick and they're they're they're just strapped for money anyway and now they're going to spend what little they have on some remedy that doesn't work. That bothers my heart, I don't like that.

Yeah, that's why you have the Kidney Stone Diet. I mean, it is it's the intervention that is proven to work. It's proven to reduce their risk for kidney stones.

And I think you've said in the past by about, I mean, even as much as 80% when it's not genetic.

Yeah, we can drop it, yep. And here's the thing, people are like, "Jill, why can't I take the pill, it's natural?" Ain't nothing more natural than changing your diet, people. Eat more fruits and vegetables, not overeating bad food or unhealthy food.

I don't like the bad, good food thing. Unhealthy food, there's nothing more natural than that. Amen.

Yeah, and that's perfect. So, to learn more, head on over to kidneystonediet.com where you can find the aforementioned prevention course and you can find a bunch of free resources, the weekly email from direct from Jill to your inbox where she keeps you on track and gives you a little nuggets of info. And if you enjoyed this episode, also be sure to subscribe on YouTube, subscribe wherever you're listening right now, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and we thank you for all your questions, for sharing this with people that are in your life who may need this as well, because every little bit helps a lot.

Yes, thanks, everybody, and do share it with people. Everybody knows somebody who has formed a kidney stone, so we really appreciate that you come and try to learn about your health and make some good, healthy lifestyle changes. So, thank you for that.

Absolutely. So, we will see everyone next time.

Bye!

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