“Does drinking soda cause kidney stones?”

Does drinking soda cause kidney stones? Let's talk about that. 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. Hello, little Jeff.

Hiya! Little.

Yeah, I'm 5' 2" and you're 6' what? 3"? 4"?

6' 4". Yeah.

Yeah. It's so funny. Like, when we're together is the only time it's like, oh yeah, we're slightly different heights.

We're almost different species.

Yeah.

I know, we're totally different species. All right, well, what's on the docket today?

All right, so today we're talking about soda and kidney stones. So, we have a question. I'm going to read it off real quick and we'll dive right in.

"Very often, I see people claiming that if you drink soda or other drinks instead of water, you will get kidney stones down the road. Is this true? From my understanding, I thought that drinking 2 L of liquid every day was a good way to combat kidney stones, irrespective of whether that liquid is water or something else.

I drink a lot of flavored sparkling water, so I was curious about this."

Yeah, it's a great question. Let's let's let's break it down. So, my advice to everybody is you need to drink enough fluids to produce 2 1/2 L of urine at least, that's the minimum, a day.

Okay, and there's research on all of this at my mentor site, Fred Coe, Dr. Coe at kidneystone.uchicago.edu. So much research, so much.

So, all fluids count. Water is best. This is what I have said for decades.

All fluids count, water is best. So, people will pick my brain, "Well, what about milk? What about juice?

What about soda? What about lemonade? What about whatever, fill in the blank." All of it counts, but there's a lot of fluids that are better than others.

I also have an article at Dr. Coe's site, "A Thirst for Variety" at kidneystone.uchicago.edu. So, soda specifically, you may hear your doctor say, "Stay away from the brown sugar." Stay away from the brown sodas, but the clear ones are fine.

I got something to say about that, too. I don't love that advice. The clear sodas, Seven-Up, Sprite, things like that, Fresca—well, Fresca has sugar substitute and that's really showing my age—but Sprite and Seven-Up, they are clear sodas, but they have a lot of sugar, and whether you're drinking brown soda or clear soda, they all have a lot of sugar.

Typically, those regular sodas, not diet sodas, regular sodas have about 38 grams of sugar in one can. Why do we care about sugar? Number one, the more sugar you eat, think added sugar, not fruit, fruit came with sugar, I'm talking about a product that was made and sugar was put into it.

When we have too much added sugar, we will pee less, so we'll put out less urine output, and our urine calcium may rise. Too much calcium in the urine can increase your stone risk, and, of course, osteopenia and osteoporosis. So, I don't love that advice.

Now, if you say to me, "Oh, Jill, I want a Sprite here and there." Enjoy, of course! And yes, that does count to your total volume of fluids, but it's also having some issues, too. Again, could be pulling calcium out of your bone, dumping it into the urine, could make you pee less.

So, I would not drink any sugared soda. Now, what is it about the brown sodas? Why do doctors say stay away from those?

Well, brown sodas typically contain phosphoric acid, and that additive can acidify your urine, which means it can make your urine pH—I'm having issue—it can make your urine pH lower. Who cares, Jill? A low urine pH, an acidic urine pH, these are the same things, calcium oxalate crystals and uric acid crystals love that environment, so they are more apt to grow in that environment for people who make kidney stones.

That is why your doctors are saying stay away from the brown sodas. I'm going to tell you stay away from all soda because of the sugar. It's one of the—I hate to say it, but it's it's it's really on the top of my worst foods or drinks that you can have, 'cause it's just all sugar.

Now, as I always say, I'm always going to say to you, if this is something you got to have once a week, a couple times a week, please enjoy it, because if you don't get to have your favorite things, you're likely to give up. So, I get people that give me hell about, "Jill, why are you telling people they can have soda?" I'm very clear on why what I say.

Sometimes we're going to have I have one of my patients, she's a wonderful woman. I've known her for a very long time, and she is in her 80s, and she has a soda a week. What am I going to tell her in her 80s?

"What are you, nuts, having that soda every week?" It brings her so much joy! She's she's so compliant and everything else. I'm going to say, "Of course, you can have that soda.

Enjoy it." When we're able to have our favorite things here and there, we are we don't have our cravings getting a hold of us and then just saying, "The hell with this, I can't do it." We have it, we move on, we get right back on track. Nobody makes a stone when they have that kind of lifestyle. You have your favorite thing once a week, you get right back on track.

The end. So, brown sodas are one of the worst things you could do overall health, every single day, five sodas a day, and I have patients that have done that. Those are just not the greatest thing for you.

They're just so high in sugar. The brown sugars have phosphoric acid, the brown sodas, the brown sodas are high in phosphoric acid, it's acidifying your urine, and that's putting you more at risk for kidney stones along with all the sugar it has in it, increase urine calcium, will make you pee less. Those are the reasons you should not be drinking brown soda or any sodas on a regular basis.

That's it.

Yeah, and for anyone who doesn't like diet, for example, I really like the Liquid Death sodas. I don't know if you've tried them yet, but they have Cola, they have a Dr Pepper it's called Dr. Death, they have lemon lime.

This isn't sponsored by Liquid Death or anything, but they're two grams of sugar in one can, 10 calories.

How much is the sodium? Turn it around, Buster Brown.

So yeah, the sodium in it is actually zero.

Very good!

Yeah, isn't that wild? So, like they have, it's agave nectar and stevia. I don't love stevia normally, but the flavor, obviously.

I don't drink it very much. I had one yesterday, though, and just it's nice to have that little change of pace sometimes and, yeah.

That's such an important point and I'm glad you brought it up. I don't know what I would do without you. This is what people are complaining about.

That's why these questions are asked. "I can't drink freaking water all day long. I need something else." So, yes, you can have.

And I think this particular question, he said or she said that they were drinking sparkling waters. As long as the salt and sugar are low in those sparkling waters, please enjoy them. You we all need a break.

I get it. We all need a break from just water. I will go on record by saying all fluids count, water is best.

Those of you who are also, you know, now you're drinking milk or now you're drinking plant milks, all that is included in your daily fluid count, too, so don't forget that, right? That counts.

Yeah, absolutely. So, if hopefully this was helpful. If you like this video or podcast, thumbs up, leave a comment, send it to a friend, and you can dive deep into all the Kidney Stone Diet goals at kidneystonediet.com.

They're right there on the site. So, everything that you possibly need you can find there and sign up for the email newsletter to get a little inspiration every weekend in your inbox. But with that, I think we'll wrap for this week and we'll see you next time.

Bye everybody, thank you.