What Harvard is telling us about preventing kidney stones

Harvard has something to tell us about preventing 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 Little Jill Harris, kidney stone prevention. I had somebody meet me from the internet. They're like, "Are you Jill, the kidney stone girl?" I'm like, "Yes, I am." And they said, "Oh my god, I just thought you were just a lot bigger." Because I said, "Well, my mouth is and that's probably misleading you, but I'm only 5'2".

I just have a really big personality." But it's funny. Just like when I'm sure when people see you, they're like, "Oh, wow." Not that anybody would think you're little, but I'm just you're so tall.

Oh yeah, 6'4". So, yeah, it's always a it's always a surprise both ways. Was that at home, like in the area, or was that elsewhere?

Yeah, that was in Chicago.

Nice! That's fun.

I know. Isn't that funny?

Yeah, isn't that wild when that happens? It's such a small world.

It is. It is, I love it.

But, yeah. So, today we're diving into basically the science and what Harvard is telling us now, today, about preventing kidney stones and how people can apply that to their health and lifestyle.

Well, you know, there's there's not going to be anything tricky here about it. Harvard says exactly what we're saying here in the Kidney Stone Diet world. We've got to watch what we eat.

We must lower our oxalate, which means taking away spinach and almonds and chia seeds every day, you know, the highest oxalate foods, getting enough calcium,

And they are the ones that studied the high oxalate the level of oxalate in foods, too.

You know what, Jeff? Yes, so they studied it and we promote, and most people in academic settings are promoting the Harvard list because we trust the research that came from it. Now, people will say, "Well, you know, Harvard, they changed the list, they redo it.

They're there's new research and now blueberries are low, and raspberries are high, raspberries are low, and blueberries are high." Whatever, it's always changing. And this is because it's not always changing, but the update a couple years ago, it caused such an uproar, didn't it? Because people are always like I always have to explain that when we study a food, it will the research will Oh, if Harvard decided to restudy all the foods again, there will still be slight differences, depending upon where they found the food, how the soil was grown, how much sunlight, all the things.

The soil greatly depends is depend the food oxalate level is dependent upon the growing conditions of each of the plant foods they studied. So, it's never going to be perfect. Because if you pluck a plant out 20 years ago and now plant and pluck it out now and study it, it's going to be a little different.

Spinach is always going to be high. For you spinach lovers out there, there's not going to be a day where you're allowed to have it again. It's just it's the highest oxalate food, pretty much.

So that's always taken off the table. Almonds are always going to be super high. Cashews are always going to be super high.

A little vari- variability, but it's not crazy. It'll never be crazy different.

And we're talking about ox- we're talking about oxalate specifically because that is the most common kidney stone, a calcium oxalate stone.

Yes. Up to 80% of calcium 80% of stones are calcium oxalate in nature. But you guys should never assume Many urologists will assume, "Oh, it's probably calcium oxalate." You shouldn't.

You should always get your stone stones analyzed if you have passed them. Get them out of your panty drawer and bring them into the doctor's office and get them analyzed. Or if a doctor is doing surgery, remind the doctor Usually, they just automatically send them for analysis, but please remind them, "I'd like to know what kind of stone I'm making." And even though a lot of your stone can be ox- calcium oxalate, there's mixtures of stones.

A very common one is 80% calcium oxalate, 20% calcium phosphate. And calcium phosphate stones, which I just did an article on my blog at kidneystonediet.com, they are they grow faster and they're harder to break up, and they grow larger. So, we got to we got to be careful with those.

So, you should always get your stone analyzed. But Harvard took it upon themselves I don't know why. I don't know why back in the '80s, and now, you know, a few years ago, they decided to study oxalate.

Somebody just decided to study it and that's the list we use. And people often ask me, "How come you how come you promote them? How come Dr.

Coe does? How come Booboo Kitty does? How come this?" Because they are the one that has We trust the most.

That's why. We trust the researchers who did it. We just trust them the most.

Now, you could say, "Well, I don't understand why one list is different from another." Well, different researchers, different plants, there's all kinds of different reasons. But I have had success lowering people's oxalate based upon Harvard for almost 30 years, so I trust it. But it's not just the list.

It's the advice I give to people. And so, everybody who's listening, I want you to really pay attention to this. This is super important.

Number one thing, people will say, "What do I do if Harvard didn't study it, Jill? Should I not have that food?" No. And this advice has never kicked me in the tush in all these years.

Have that food once or twice a week in a normal portion size. And I always say twice, just so you're not throwing away food, leftovers. But if you're eating everything in a normal portion size, not like you did with spinach and almonds and almond bread and almond milk all the time, every single day and not getting your calcium needs met, then you won't have a problem.

So, when we eat food, all food except spinach, almonds, cashews, chia seeds, the ones I always talk about, in normal portion sizes and we get our calcium needs met every single day, we no longer have an oxalate problem unless you have medical conditions that are contributing to it. Okay? So, the advice has never ever backfired on a patient when I say, "If Harvard didn't study it, you can have that food.

Don't be picking it out of your salad or whatever. But normal portions of it. Well, you will not have problems, I promise.

So, we use the Harvard list. We trust it. It's been around for decades.

And when we don't have a food that they studied, when we don't have good numbers for them, we eat the food once or twice a week and we get our calcium needs met every day. That's how we lower urine oxalate. Even more important than the dumb list is getting enough calcium needs met getting your calcium needs met every day.

I will say this till I'm blue in the face. I have never worked with anybody in all these decades where they say, "Jill, don't worry about calcium. I get plenty." Nobody.

Why are our doctors not reminding us in our 20s and 30s, "Hey, are you getting calcium? Because we don't want you to get osteoporosis later on." 50% of women now th- have osteoporosis, and I can assure you that there was no doctor ever I've never had a patient say, "Yeah, my doctor told me about it in my 30s. I've been getting calcium ever since." Nobody.

Nobody. Not until we have osteoporosis or kidney stones do doctors say, "Oh, get your calcium needs met." Well, I'm already 70. That ship has sailed.

It doesn't mean you can't help the process of bone disease, and you can certainly curtail it by getting your calcium needs met now. But I'm just saying, where was the guidance prior to this? It's very interesting to me.

You know? Also, and Jeff's like, "Jill, that's not what we're talking about." But I got to say this. Also, people are like I can't tell you how many patients I talk to, they're they are thin, they don't have any medical conditions until they have a kidney stone, and they'll say to me, "Well, Jill, I've been eating this amount of salt my whole life.

What do I got to worry about salt and sugar? I'm thin!" But it's not about that. You can be thin and have medical issues.

And that's a problem, so following the Kidney Stone Diet is going to help so many things, whether you have them already or to prevent them in the future because a lower-sodium and lower added-sugar diet is just a healthy way to eat, making sure you get enough calcium, drinking enough water, not overeating meat protein for stone formers.

It's just eating healthy, right? But the Harvard oxalate list, it has done my patients right for all these years. I trust it.

And again, it's all the advice I give, and also 100 mg of oxalate a day. Okay? That's your goal.

Don't go over that. Get your calcium needs met every day. Nobody has ever like, "Well, I feel like I'm missing so many foods.

It's only 100 mg a day I can have?" That's plenty, folks. You're going to see. Most of you are only getting 50 or 60 once you take away spinach and almond products.

So, there's that. Jeff, I kind of feel like I went all over in that. Did I hit what we wanted me to hit?

Oh, yeah! That's good because, yeah, this is just to sort of let people know, whether new or existing, that this is all coming from science. This is coming from the research and your vast experience.

Like, for anyone who isn't fully aware, Jill's been doing this for 26 years, thousands of patients. She's helped thousands of patients prevent kidney stones, and she's here doing this so you can ensure you never have to suffer again. And that's that's why there's so many free resources at kidneystonediet.com.

If all of this with diet and everything sounds complex, like what do I even eat, there's the Kidney Stone Diet Excuse me, Kidney Stone Diet Meal Plans, and that'll show you four meals every day, breakfast, lunch, dinner, and a snack, to give you inspiration on what you can eat on a daily basis, not what you have to eat, but just to make it simple on you.

Yes! Yes, ideas and inspiration. I will tell you what, when people come to me on the phone, the first thing they say is, "I am so overwhelmed.

I am so overwhelmed. There's so much to learn. There's calcium, there's salt, there's sugar.

I can't take it all in, Jill. I can't take it all in." They're over- They're just They've just been sick. Look, again, I get this as a patient with my own with my own illnesses.

You're so overwhelmed that when you when you get to a website or you find somebody that knows, you just want just a little bit at a time. You're just taking it in. You can't just say, "I'm doing the whole Kidney Stone Diet today." You Y- Y- You just can't.

So, I always tell people, just start with water. Start there. Get your bearings around that.

Then once you're pretty good with that, you're producing at least 2 and 1/2 L of urine a day, then you go to the sodium. Then you It's a It's a slow, little journey, folks. You can't do this all at once.

You just got through surgery. You just got through all that pain. You got through this You were knocked upside in the middle of the night going to the.

I hear it every single day. You need the information in bite-sized pieces. Little by little, we make changes.

We don't just say, "Do this tomorrow." It's never That's not how this works. So, and also, I know you all want to start with the oxalate piece. Fine, take away spinach, almond, chia seeds, cashews, take those away.

I'm telling you, though, that is the least of your problem once you take away those things. You get water, you lower salt and sugar, you get your calcium needs met because that further lowers oxalate. That's The oxalate, once you take away those things If When you take my Kidney Stone Prevention Course, the oxalate is the last thing I talk about because it just is not that important.

You guys are eating too much sugar. You're eating too much salt. Many of you, because of your job, cannot drink enough water.

Many of you have illnesses that are contributing to your stones, and we may never get 100% decreased stone risk in you. Up to 80% of stones can be prevented, but then there's there's this little subset of people that have medical conditions that they will still get stones. But I have never worked with somebody that I can't decrease at least the risk, okay?

Bowel patients, gastric bypass patients, once you get information in a nice, little, slow nutshell and you talk to people I talk to people and I say, "We're going to start here, then you're going to go there." Then they call me for a second consult a month later. "Okay, I'm good with this. Now, let's go." I mean, it's a process, folks.

But we're so used to the diet industry using the words "quick and easy" that we think, you know, you just want to take pills and supplements and potions and meal replacements. It doesn't work. When you start getting sick, you do have to learn how to nourish your body properly.

And for many of you, you have never learned how to do that because who's teaching it? It's a bunch of crap on the internet. You don't know if you're coming or going, and I and I'm working with very smart people, and they don't know what even how to read a nutrition label because who really has taught us this stuff?

So, honestly, you know, Jeff, I can go over I can go on and on about this stuff. It's, you know, considering food is really an important part of our health, it's just really sad to me how there's just crazy information all over, conflictual, contradicting, and when you're sick, when you've been sick like me, when you're sick like our audience has been, you just want straight facts and you want it in an easy way to understand, you know?

You want it in real life. You want common, practical fixes, and that's what we do here at Kidney Stone Diet, and I'm super proud of that. So, go to the go to our blog, go to kidneystonediet.com, go to the articles there.

Go to all the free information. I have a Start Page where it just says, "Start right here." It's got to be easy. It's got to be digestible.

It can't be overwhelming. I get that. So, just start slowly, folks.

But the last thing I'll say is you could talk about Harvard, you could talk about oxalate, you could talk about calcium. If you guys I'll have people that say, "Jill, I'll I'll do your diet, but I can't drink more water." You all will still make stones. You The number one thing, even though you're thinking it's oxalate, the number one thing to prevent kidney stones is drinking enough water to produce 2 and 1/2 L of urine a day.

How much water you need to do that is dependent upon your lifestyle. If you're eating a lot of sugar and salt, you're going to pee less because you're retaining water. If you sweat a lot, you're going to have to drink more because you're losing it through your skin.

There's a lot of factors. That's why we're asking you for the output of 2 and 1/2 L. You at least have to drink 80 oz of fluid, I would say 80 to 100 oz of fluid, depending upon your lifestyle.

All right, I know I went all over, but we really try to give as much as we can in these videos because maybe you can just tolerate one video of mine. So, because of how I'm presenting or whatever. So, at least I get it in there as much as I can because my goal for you is to not be sick.

I really care about that, being a patient myself. I really care about that. Being sick is the worst thing in the world.

Doesn't matter about anything else. If you're sick, you can't enjoy anything else in your life. So, I implore you, guys, go to kidneystonediet.com, go to the articles, stay on this YouTube channel.

There's going to be another one recommended. Start binging. There was also somebody on the Facebook page, and for real, I'll shut up.

This was yesterday, and they said, "You know, this is taking It's too much time reading articles and looking at YouTube. It takes too much time." That person will not be able to prevent kidney stones because they're not willing to put in the time. I'm not being harsh.

I'm just telling you what is required. If you want to learn how to be sick, there's no easy way to do it except do your own research, find credible people on the internet, listen to your doctors and nurses, but there's no quick fix for it. You are going to have to delve into articles.

You are going to have to delve into videos. There's not going to be one post on a Facebook page that's going to cure you. It does take time.

I wish it didn't. It took me a lot of time to learn about my cancer, about what each of those surgeries were going to entail, about what doctor should I find. I've spent hours and hours researching how to take care of myself with my cancer.

It takes time. And if you're not willing to put in the time into your health, you're going to suffer eventually from it, and then time will be taken with sickness later. So, put up the time upfront so you don't have to have another ureteroscopy, lithotripsy, or stent, God forbid.

Put your time in now. It does require time, unfortunately. And I know everybody works.

We all work. We work 7 days a week here at Kidney Stone Diet. It's Memorial Day today.

Okay? So, we know it takes time, and we know that everybody works a lot, but you're going to have to make the time to do what we're asking you to do. I hope you understand that.

That comes from my heart. That's not me lecturing. It's just from somebody who's been really sick in her life.

It's going to take some time, folks. Do your due diligence so you never, if at all possible, ever have to go run to the in the middle of the night again with kidney stone pain. That's what I want for you.

Yeah, and if you want someone in your corner, someone to talk to, Jill does speak with patients every day of the week. So, you can you can find that and everything more at kidneystonediet.com to prevent dealing with this horrible, horrible pain. But with that, I think we'll wrap, and we'll see you next week.

Everybody have a great day. Thanks.