When will Harvard update their oxalate list?

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

I was busy, but here I am. Oh, I guess I'm on. Okay.

So, my name is Jill and I'm here to talk about kidney stone prevention. It's what I do. I'm a nurse

And that's it. That's the end, cuz I'm busy, people. You got me at a at a bad time, Jeff.

Okay, I'm okay now, though.

I love that. Yeah, always workin', always something, you know?

Okay, so wait. I got to say hi to somebody. This is to Adriana's daughter, Valencia, I'm saying hi to you, and I'm glad that your mom watches the show so she can learn about kidney stone prevention.

And you did You had no idea how cool your mom was watching YouTube now, did you? So, your mom is a cool lady. So, hello, Valencia, and hello, Adriana, too.

Okay, go ahead. Do your stuff.

I think so, too. Thanks for watching! And, yeah, we'll do another listener question this week.

And this is from Sue.

Hi, my name is Sue, and I'm calling from Boston, Massachusetts.

And my question for Jill is

Kind of a follow-up from the question, "Is quinoa high in oxalate?"

And, she discussed how the only,

List that she uses to determine oxalate content is the Harvard list.

And that was, that came out before things like quinoa were popular or being eaten

Here in this country. So, my question is, is

Do you think that Harvard

Might update their oxalate content list

With more recent foods that,

People weren't eating that much of back whenever they made up the first list?

Anyways, I hope that they will

Add more information and expand their oxalate content list

In the future. Thank you for your help. Bye-bye.

Oh, she was so sweet. Yeah.

Okay. So,

The Harvard list, let me go over why we use it. I say this probably about 72 times a day, but it's very important. I never get tired of it.

I really don't, quite frankly. It's very, very important. Why we use it.

We, as Dr. Coe, but there's a lot of people that use the Harvard list in their practice.

So, we use it because we've been using it for decades. It's It's an old list. People say, "Jill, that list is old.

Who cares about that stupid list? Why do you keep talking about it?" We talk about it because we know it works. Our patients lower their, urine oxalate on their follow-up urine collections,

But it's not just the stupid list. It's not just the list. It's all the other advice we give.

So, people will say, "Well, if it's not the list, why don't we why can't we use all the lists in the world? Why? Why?

Why?" That's what they ask. So, if you go on my Facebook page, it's a closed group, but if you go on there, the Kidney Stone– I don't know, what is it called, Jeff? Kidney Stone–

Kidney Stone Prevention Group.

Yeah, something. Yeah. The Kidney Stone Prevention Diet, that's sad that we don't know.

Anyway, if there's like 10,000 people on it, we don't even know what it's called. Anyway,

People will come to that group and say, "I saw this list. I saw this list." So, then everyone's like, "Oh, my god, my list says this. Your list says that?

Oh, my god." Well, so, this is why I say, if you're at my Facebook group, don't be coming to my Facebook group with a different list. Why? Because people's heads

Spin around and then they get too confused. My job in this world, besides being a mother to my son, is to make to have people less confused about kidney stone prevention. They come to me in a tizzy because they saw 27 lists!

And then they come to my group and they're like, "Oh, my god, she uses her list!" Throw away all the lists! Or don't use the Harvard list, I don't care. Just don't come to my group with a different list, cuz everybody's used to my list, the Harvard list, on that page.

Follow your list. Do what you need to do, okay? But, it's not really about the list, anyway.

It's about everything else.

Get enough calcium. The only way you can get rid of the excess oxalate in your body is to get calcium every day. And most adults get bip, zero for calcium.

I've never worked with somebody in 21 years that says, "Oh," that's me smoking.

That's me, the kidney stone prevention nurse, smoking, blowing smoke in your face. "Don't worry about it. I get enough calcium, Jill.

You don't got to waste your breath talking about it." No one's ever said that in 21 years. What everyone says to me, all day long on the phone, "Oh, calcium? Oh, I gave that up, that up dairy a million years ago."

Well, doesn't have to be dairy that you get calcium from. I'm not promoting dairy. Please understand that, cuz I get that all day long, "I don't eat dairy.

I don't eat dairy." I don't care! Just get your calcium! Do not get it through pills, that can increase your stone risk.

So, get enough calcium because calcium and oxalate bind in your intestine and it leaves through the stool. If you have something that's high in oxalate and there's and you didn't have calcium,

You're not getting any calcium in your diet, the oxalate gets digested, it gets down meander, it's looking for its friend calcium, he's like, "Oh, my god, where is she? She's not here. I can't go out how I want to through the stool.

So, now, I got to go back up." And that's how we get higher oxalate levels. So, it's not any of the stupid lists. I use the list, Harvard, because we've been using it.

Along with the advice we give, when people stop overeating the highest oxalate foods and get their daily calcium– go to kidneystonediet.com on the start page and you'll see the goals of the Kidney Stone Diet, so you know what your calcium needs should be

And what your oxalate should be, and get all your– get the Harvard list there. Now, so, it's it's that is the reason why we use the Harvard list. We trust it because we see the follow-up urine collections.

Challenges of Oxalate Research and Unlisted Foods

Now,

People ask me this, too: "When is Harvard going to get all those researchers back from 30 years ago, 40 years ago, and start doing more research?" I don't know. I don't know those researchers. Dr.

Coe does. They're They're They're very They're big-deal scientists that worked over there. I will tell you guys, it's expensive, and it's difficult to measure oxalate, so it's not the easiest thing in the world and it's not like the government's paying people to study this, so it's probably low on a list to do.

And this is why I say, things that are not on that list, and I say this all day long, too, things that are not on that list, eat once or twice a week in a normal portion size. Again, why did people have high oxalate, if it's strictly a diet issue? They ate as much as they wanted of spinach and almonds.

They got diabetes.

Somebody told them, " eat spinach. You want a snack? Eat almonds all day long.

They're healthy." And so what do we think? The more heal– the more, if something's healthy, the more we eat of it, the healthier we'll be. Not so, as kidney stone formers know.

In conjunction with not getting any calcium. So, so many stoners come to me

And they ate spinach salads, spinach smoothies, they had beets all day long, they got no calcium, they were eating almonds like this all day long, trying to keep their blood sugar steady. And so, they ate the highest oxalate food and that was the problem. So, when people work with me privately, I bring all kinds of foods back.

I do not bring spinach and almonds back. That I take away, cuz they're so high. 600 milligrams, over 600 milligrams for a cup of spinach.

And by the time you sauté a cup of spinach, it's as big as my nose, okay? So, it's nothing. Well, my nose isn't that petite, but, you know what I'm saying, my eyeball, okay?

So,

So, it's all the advice we give. So, even though, Sue, I know I know you and thousands of other people want Harvard to redo their list, I don't know if they ever will. I don't know.

It would be nice, so I don't have to, keep repeating myself all day long, but it's worth it to me because people come to me and they've stopped eating so many foods that they can eat. So, again, everybody, we need to put our fork down when we are full. We are overeating food, whether that's crappy food, healthy foods, we eat too much.

Nobody wants to hear that,

And I don't win a lot of friends for saying that, but I am known around town for telling you things that you need to hear, sometimes not necessarily the most adorable thing, but, typically, we eat too much. And just because the food is healthy doesn't give you, a reason to overeat it. It does not mean more health.

Our body wants to get enough nutrients where it functions properly, but not too much because it doesn't need it. It really doesn't. So, that's my take on it.

Yeah, I think that's wonderful advice, as always, and, yeah, you don't know when Harvard might re-address it, and, also, there isn't necessarily, as you said, an immense need for it. Like, we want to We'd love to know quinoa, specifically. We'd love to know, some of the other more recent superfoods that haven't made that list, but, at the same time, like you said, it's it's portion, not perfection.

You're You're follow– you have a set of guidelines that will help that you've proven over decades with patients that this works and this is why you take this approach.

Yes, people will say, "Jill, you know, I just told you all this how I've been through. I think you're being very nonchalant about this advice. Oh, you could eat a lot more, blah, blah, blah, portion, not perfection." But, I am basing this on follow-up urine collections.

So, I'll tell my patients that are that keep saying, "I'm worried about it." I don't want people to be worried. I understand anxiety and being sick. I really do.

So, I never give advice without it, without it being sound. So, I say, "There's a lot more you can have," and then I'll tell patients, "Look, have the quinoa when you do the urine collection. Have it!

Have a few beets, get your calcium." They get their urine collections, they're like, "I'll be damned!

You were right! My oxalate's still low! Great!" And, see, but I tell them to do that when they're doing their follow-up, so they don't have anxiety every time they decide to have a little bit of something that is on the higher side, or something that has not been studied.

When we eat our foods, a wide variety of foods, not the same 10 every day, when we eat a wide variety of foods in normal portion sizes, things get better, people. I promise. I really I promise.

They do, they do.

Yeah, and I think that's great. If you want to dive deeper into the Kidney Stone Diet and learn more, head on over to kidneystonediet.com where you'll find the Kidney Stone Diet course, the prevention course. You can find the Facebook group that we don't know the name of, but–

Hahaha! Don't tell anybody!

But, yeah, Kidney Stone Prevention Diet Group is what I believe it's called, yeah. But, yeah, you can find that. You can find the weekly email newsletter.

You can find the oxalate list. We have a little, web app where you can type in the food and automatically, sorts the list and shows you the related foods, just to make it easier to parse.

Yeah, you can put that on your phone. It's kind of like an app. We made our own little app, kind of like an app, so you can put the icon on your phone.

It's very handy when you're in the grocery store to find out. So, it's basically the Harvard list right on your phone. Yes.

Yeah, and, yeah, just condensed into a way that's more easily accessible. That's But, it's all the It's all that exact data from the list that we've been talking about this whole episode. So, yeah, be sure to head on over to kidneystonediet.com.

And, if you're enjoying the show, be sure to leave a review on Apple Podcasts. Or, if you're watching on YouTube, leave a comment below. Like, we'd love to hear from you.

Jill responds to everything.

I do.

And, if you subscribe, click that little bell. And even, hit the thumbs up on the video. All of that helps us reach more people.

And, in the end, that's that's the entire goal of this podcast. There's no There's no sponsors. There's probably never going to be any sponsors.

That's not how Jill does this, like any anything that she does. It's purely to try to reach as many people as we can. And then, those of you who want to dive deeper, you can dive into the meal plans, the prevention course, and everything, or just stick with all the free stuff because we're we're not stopping this.

We're just going to keep going.

We're going to keep on going, baby. Let's go!

Yeah, so thanks again for, thanks to Sue for calling in and that number is

Thanks, Sue!

773-789-8763. And, yeah, I think we'll wrap right there.

Love it. Thank you, Sue. Loved your question.

Yeah, thanks, everyone. See you next week.

Bye!