Is Sparkling Water Bad for Kidney Stones?

Is sparkling water bad for kidney stones? What about tonic water, mineral water? Let's talk about that.

Let's talk about it.

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.

And I'm Jill Harris, your kidney stone prevention nurse.

And we're back at it again with a new episode. So, yeah, today we're talking water. We've talked a lot about water and fluids, but specifically now going into the various types of sparkling, tonic, mineral, flavored waters, all these things.

Like, sort of where do they all land in this whole, holistic picture of kidney stone prevention?

You know, it's so funny. This came up, first of all, when Jeff said, he just said a minute ago, "Let's talk about sparkling water." I said, "Okay, somebody on the website just asked a question about it." So, it was timely. And then, I had a friend that was like, she texted me.

She's like, "Jeez, Jill. I had no idea I was having a gin and tonic. I had no idea that tonic had a lot of sugar in it." I said, "Well, you know, I mean, you think you're having something benign.

It's just tonic, right? It's just seltzer. It's just mineral water, and mineral water sounds really healthy, doesn't it?

Mineral water.

So, you know, a lot of people, once they look, they turn around, Buster Brown, and they look at their waters, whether it's seltzer, whether it's tonic, whether it's mineral, whatever you're drinking. Personally, I don't buy my water. I'm just too cheap.

It is expensive to be buying all these waters. Now, I know people will say, "Well, Jill, my water is well water, and it's disgusting." You all do you. I really want you to do whatever makes you happy, and whatever has you drinking more water is just excites me, period.

I personally don't buy water, because people will inevitably write me in an email and say, "What kind of water do you drink, Jill?" And I always disappoint them and say, "Tap, just tap. Chicago's finest." So anyway, sparkling water, it's made with carbon dioxide. It's not a problem for kidney stone formers.

It's making it all sparkly and bubbly, and your nose may like that little tickle. So, that's fine. But we do, with all of these things, we want to make sure that it doesn't have excess salt in it.

It doesn't have added sugar in it, because, personally, I'd rather spend my sugar and salt budget on things I can chew and eat, right? Not what I can drink.

So, as far as your seltzers go, you may be surprised, there may be some sodium put in there. So, look at all your labels, even something as simple as water. Mineral water, let's talk about that for a second.

Some of those mineral waters, they definitely have sodium in it. So, you may say, "Oh Jill, I love it. It's helping me drink.

I'm only having one or two a day." So, look at the label, and just work that sodium into your daily budget. Kidney stone formers are allowed– well, allowed, kidney stone the Kidney Stone Diet goal is 1500. And I always say 1500 to 2000.

I say that because when I just say the Kidney Stone Diet goal for sodium is 1500, people go down to 200 and pass out. Please don't do that, okay? So, 1500 to 2000, we have a sodium goal there, because first of all, you'll pee more if you have a little less sodium.

Less sodium, the average person is eating like 35 to 4000, 100, 4000 milligrams of sodium a day, 3 to 4,000 milligrams of sodium a day. So, we want you to lower it for all kinds of things: good blood pressure, heart disease, kidney health.

But, in the kidney stone world, what it does is it helps lower urine calcium, which is the big reason you guys are making kidney stones. You have too much calcium in your urine, and that calcium isn't getting to your bones, so it can also lead to osteopenia and osteoporosis. So, you'll know that if you get a 24-hour urine collection.

So, in mineral water, we want to pay attention to the amount of sodium it's giving you. Work that into your day, or you may say, "You know what? This mineral water, I thought was just healthy and I liked it, kind of, no thank you.

It's giving me too much sodium."

The other thing about mineral water, it also will have some calcium in there. A little bit of calcium, I'm not going to worry about, but some of them can have 200, 300 milligrams of calcium in a bottle. So, make sure you're counting that as calcium in your calcium budget.

Men get up to 1000 milligrams of calcium a day. Women should be getting 1000 or 1200 depending upon if you're postmenopausal. If you are, up to 1200 milligrams a day; still get your period, up to 1000.

Okay, and getting enough calcium is, is great for kidney stone formers. Number one, you have bones that you need to feed, but number two, it helps lower your urine oxalate. So that's the reason we care about it in kidney stone prevention.

So in mineral water, you want to pay attention to the amount of calcium. If it's just a little bit under 100, like I said, that's not a problem. That's not breaking your bank.

But do note that is part of your calcium budget.

And then, a lot of people are drinking flavored waters. That's fine. If you can work that added sugar into your, once again, your budget.

Kidney Stone Diet wants 25 grams of added sugar for men. Sorry, women, 38 grams of added sugar for men, okay? So that means sugar that doesn't naturally occur in the food you're eating.

So just think most junk food, okay?

So we want to limit added sugar. Number one, that's a healthy thing for your heart, obesity, kidney health. But, in kidney stone disease, it can also increase urine calcium.

There are studies that show that, so that's why we have the sugar goal, the added sugar goal. So anytime, it doesn't mean that you can't have a flavored water sometimes. You can.

I just don't want people to take, you know, make all their all their water intake a flavored water. And you may say to yourself, "Jill, who would do that?" Plenty of people do that.

They're not paying attention to the sugar. So please do. A lot of those flavored waters are and sweetened waters are not as not healthier than a soda, I promise you.

So and what about artificial, artificially sweetened waters? If they work for you, and they work for your gut and you don't feel upset or have loose stool from them or have a reaction to them, you can use them. I would limit your artificial sweeteners.

I wouldn't be eating artificial sweetener all day. More and more studies are talking about gut health with artificial sweeteners.

So, a little bit everyday, we have a blog post on artificial or a YouTube show on artificial sweeteners, so check that out. But, you know, lots of artificial sweetener, it's artificial, and a lot of those artificial sweeteners could be increasing your sweet tooth. So here and there, absolutely.

Making it a main thing in your diet, I would discourage that. I certainly bake with artificial sweetener, but, you know, it's a little bit. So, again, portion not perfection when it comes to artificial sweeteners.

So, and then I briefly talked about tonic water. It definitely has some sugar in there, so you can get unsugared tonic water. You can drink that if you'd like.

But overall, what I'm going to suggest, what Dr. Coe will tell you, we drink regular tap water. So you do you.

A little bit of these products are okay, but do look at the nutrition label, cuz you may be surprised of some of the stuff you're getting. It's not just water: salt, added sugar, calcium. Check your nutrition labels of the water you're buying.

That's it, Jeff.

Yeah, I think that's a perfect spot to wrap. When you're ready to dive in and prevent kidney stones for good, you can go to kidneystonediet.com, where you can work directly with Jill, you can sign up for the meal plans, you can get everything Kidney Stone Diet right there on the website. So, I think with that, we'll wrap, and we'll see you next week.

Bye, everybody.