Should I stop taking vitamin C if I have kidney stones?

The following is designed to entertain and inform, not provide medical advice. Always consult your doctor before starting any new treatment.

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. I'm answering emails as we're doing the show right now. I mean not when I'm talking, but while the intro was going.

Well, yeah, there's always there's always new questions. There's always more to work on. Yeah, because yeah this is never-ending.

You would think that 100 and let's see. I think this is 141. I think this is the 141st episode of the show.

You would think we'd be out of questions. We'd be out of things, topics to cover. You'd be out of people to reach, but you've been doing this now, what, 24 years?

Yeah, and I figured it out the other day. In December, it will be 25 years. We'll have to do a special show for that.

Yeah, that is just unfathomable, but that's where you get the breadth of experience. I mean, so much time with patients. I mean, I, well, I started I started doing this in '99.

Yeah, it's wild. Crazy.

But, yeah, and that's why we started the whole platform, is you've been doing this for so long, but it's hard to scale that direct, one-on-one time where having the podcast, having the blog, the Facebook group, all these things where you can finally branch out and reach more people. It's so much more valuable to the whole, to the whole of the kidney stone-forming community.

And that's why we appreciate everyone of you who listens, subscribes, likes on YouTube, leaves comments. It means a lot to help us reach more people because that is the goal at the end of the day.

Yeah, it really is. And no, you know, I have always said people are always so gracious, and I it's a privilege. That's how I feel.

You know, as a nurse, you what you do you want it to help people, right, as trite as that sounds. But, I mean, you know, I never thought in my whole wide world that I'd be doing kidney stone patients, but that's where it led. And it's been a remarkable career for me.

And the great thing about the internet is it's here. This is just these YouTube videos, if, you know, God forbid, I leave the earth, they're here. They're here, right?

And so, they're they're just, they'll always be here, so that's wonderful. Because a lot of things we're talking about, they're not going to change. Doing a low-salt, low-sugar diet, the Kidney Stone Diet is always going to be a healthy diet.

There's not going to be something drastic, "Oh, shit, we were wrong about that thing!" No. I mean, we should be eating normally, normal portion sizes, blah, blah, blah, all the things that we talk about. It's what we should all do always.

So, there will This will always be pertinent. It'll always be what should be done, right?

Yeah, it's evergreen. It's always going to be good.

It's evergreen, yeah.

Yeah, what do you say? Should we dive into this week's question?

Yeah, let's do it.

All righty. Hi, Jill and Jeff, it's Alan from Indiana. My question is about vitamin C.

I, personally, do not take multivitamins or supplements, excuse me, never have. My question is this: I know the RDA is, I believe 90 mg, a day, to prevent scurvy, for the most part. I just kind of wanted a more thorough explanation of food intake with vitamin C, due to the body turning vitamin C into oxalate, and just some recommendations, and stuff like that.

It's not really a current issue, it's just was just kind of on my mind today, and I have not seen a post about it. I've seen several posts on Facebook, with a lot of information. So, yeah, just vitamin C intake on a daily basis.

And that's my question. Have a wonderful day. Thank you, guys, so much.

Vitamin C. If you do a urine collection, it will say on a lot of them, "Please stop taking vitamin C before the test," because too much vitamin C can convert over to oxalate in your body. Not in everybody, but in a lot of people.

So, we ask patients to stop, first of all. I had a number here, and it's like 600 It Oh, no, I'm lying. Vitamin C.

Just vitamin C. Over $200 million were spent on vitamin C last year. 200 million, people.

People haven't had scurvy since 1912! Okay? Vitamin C is always "I have a cold, I'm going to suck down vitamin C.

I have a fever. I have this. I have that." Vitamin C is the most overused vitamin there is.

So, we know there have been studies done that when people take too much I've read some studies that say 1,000 a day is too much. I've read some studies that say 2,000 is too much. I've read some studies that say a couple hundred a day is too much.

So, I'm going to go with 1,000 or 2,000, okay? In the 1,000 range is too much. Why we're overdosing on vitamin C is beyond me.

It's called marketing, vitamins in general. If you eat a well-balanced diet and you're a healthy individual, certainly, there's people with medical conditions that will require them to take some supplements as recommended by their doctor because the blood test says they need it, okay? So, certainly, if you need a vitamin, please take them.

I take vitamin D, I take fish oil, and I take B12 because I need those things, okay? So, everybody has different needs. But for the majority of Americans, we just go in that vitamin aisle, and we act like it's PEZ, candy.

Like we could just take it like, "Oh, and more is better, more is better, more is better." Well, too much vitamin C can convert over to oxalate and cause excess oxalate in your urine, which could increase your risk for kidney stones. Most people get plenty of vitamin C. Nobody is I don't I don't know many people deficient in vitamin C.

Of course, some people have medical conditions and their doctor will tell them they need to take it. But most people are just taking it because they think it's going to be a healthier thing. And also with vitamins, "Well, my doctor told me to take 1,000, Jill.

So I just naturally thought that taking 10,000 would be better." That's not how it That's not how it works. So I want you guys to be really be responsible in taking your vitamins, okay? Talk to your doctor about vitamins.

"My doctor don't know nothing about vitamins, Jill." Talk to your pharmacist about vitamins. Do your research. Get blood tests to see what you're deficient in.

But if you want to get vitamin C naturally, women should get 75 a day and men, 90, like Alan said, so he's a male, so he's saying 90. But women should take get 75 mg a day. I don't know of anybody that's low in vitamin C.

Eat your fruits and vegetables. You'll get plenty of vitamin C, and you don't have to supplement. For people that are taking supplements, you're spending a lot of money if you don't know if you need them.

And so I'm always careful. I don't love the supplement questions because everybody's different. And sometimes when I say something, people are like, "She said don't take it." I'm not saying that.

I'm saying if your doctor says you're low in something, and you cannot get it naturally, you should take supplements. But don't take supplements like they're just free, little extra, you know, things to boost your immune and stuff. First of all, you have to be taking a supplement for a long time before it's going to do any boosting of anything.

It doesn't happen overnight. And you should talk to your doctor about safe doses. Talk to your pharmacist about safe doses.

In some cases, excess vitamin dosages can cause kidney stones: the vitamin C, the vitamin D, collagen, turmeric pills, all these things that people take can increase your risk of kidney stones. So, don't take them as some miracle immune you know, immune booster pills. If you eat your fruits and vegetables, that's just natural.

Get a good, varied, wide variety of fruits and vegetables. Get your lean meats, of course, if you're a meat eater. Get your calcium needs met.

Most of the things that you're lacking can be gotten by diet. If not, then a supplement should be taken as directed by your doctor. But also, don't pick the dose for yourself and think that more is better, because that's not how it works.

So, I think that people just are a little bit too glib about vitamins. A lot of these vitamins are not, you know, third-party tested. You don't know the quality of them.

So, I'd be very careful. The vitamin industry is just billions of dollars every year. And lots of people are taking vitamins with no reason.

They're just taking them. They sat on the toilet, they read Reader's Digest, the latest greatest said to take whatever, and so they go to the Walgreens and they go pick up that in the highest dose possible because more is always better. And then some problems can come about.

So, I'm always careful about talking about vitamins because, I don't want to dissuade people who need them to stop taking them. And I definitely don't want people to start taking them just because they think it's in a healthy immune booster kind of thing. Food, eating it, and, getting a wide variety of it, especially fruits and vegetables, that's the best immune boosting you can possibly do.

So, that's my take on it. Vitamin C can increase kidney stone risk. I've seen many different levels as to which level increases it.

They always say high doses, so just think 1,000 or up. That's what I have seen, steadily. So, go with that.

And most of you do not need vitamin C because you're getting plenty. So, just make sure you need it before you start gobbling it down, spending your hard-earned money on it, especially in a recession, by the way. That's my take.

Yeah, and the portion, not perfection, I mean, that'll self-regulate your vitamin intake, too. It's easy to take way too many pills, way too many supplements.

Oh, my god, so many people do.

Yeah, but it's hard to eat too much fruit and veggies to get so much vitamin C that it's a problem. That's That's much more unlikely.

Yes. And for people who are saying, you know, people will say, "Well, Jill, I can't eat oranges because they're high in oxalate." Oranges are higher in oxalate, 20-something per orange. But if you get 100 a day, most people can safely have 100 mg of oxalate a day.

You still got 70 left. So, that's okay. Sometimes a girl or a boy needs an orange.

Perfectly fine. It's a great source of vitamin C. So, enjoy your orange, get your calcium needs met every day, but you don't have to, you know, take away things that are orange.

I promise you don't. You can certainly fit that into your oxalate budget if you'd like to.

Yeah, absolutely. So, I think that's a good place to wrap up today. Thank you, Alan, for your question.

That number, again, is 773-789-8763 if you would like to have your question answered on the show and have your voice featured. We love hearing from everyone. It's so nice to connect a voice with maybe a name that you've seen in the Facebook group or even because I have no involvement in your group calls or anything.

So, it's always It's fun to sort of connect the people to the wider audience that's only listening or watching the show. I think it's really It's really fun because it's a community. It's people who are all going through the same thing and recognizing it.

I love it, too. I'm like, "Oh, it's Alan today! Hi, Alan!" Yeah, because I know Alan.

He's in the He's in the course, and he's on the Facebook page. So, yeah, it's always an extra treat when it's somebody I know, for sure. I love that.

"Oh, look, it's Alan."

Absolutely. And to do a deep dive, you can head over to kidneystonediet.com where you can find all the resources, the free weekly newsletter, the links to the Facebook page, the premium, the course, the meal plans, everything.

Oh, and the course, by the way, because we haven't said this, it remains $40 off because we're we're because of the recession. So, we're very sensitive to these kinds of things. And so the course, it has been $189, but now it's $149 as of this date, of course.

Look, you'll see courses. People copy me now. Their courses are $300 and over.

So, I will always be the person on the internet who has the most experience and the least expensive course. We pride ourselves on that because, as people who have medical bills, we understand that it's expensive. So, we took $40 off, and it's going to remain for a little while the recession is here, and so, buy it buy it at its sale price because it will go up.

Yeah, absolutely. But with that, I think we will wrap for this week. Thank you, everyone, for listening, watching, liking, subscribing, commenting.

Everything is so helpful, and we genuinely appreciate it. And with that, we'll see you next time.

Thanks, Alan. Bye.