Coffee and Kidney Stones

Kidney stones, which are hard objects that form in the kidneys or pass down into the ureter, cause pain and can block urine flow. They’re also a leading cause of kidney infections in hospital patients. Several risk factors for kidney stones include drinking too much caffeine, drinking too many oxalate-rich foods and being overweight. But while limiting caffeine is helpful for those who want to prevent kidney stones, you don’t need to give up coffee completely. In fact, the latest research shows that a regular cup of coffee can help reduce your risk of getting the painful stones.

Researchers in Sweden found that habitual coffee and caffeine consumption is associated with a lower risk of kidney stones, which afflicts up to 15% of the population. They used a Mendelian randomization study, which allows them to identify causal associations using genetic data without being confounded by environmental or self-adopted factors, Shuai Yuan, BMed, and Susanna C Larsson, PhD, with the unit of cardiovascular and nutritional epidemiology at Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm, wrote in the American Journal of Kidney Diseases.

The study found that those who consumed a regular serving of caffeinated beverage (eight or more ounces per day) had a 26% lower chance of developing kidney stones than those who did not drink coffee. The authors suggest that this protective effect is likely due to the increased water intake from a regular cup of coffee. It is important to note, however, that a cup of regular coffee is not going to provide enough fluids to prevent dehydration, which is a risk factor for kidney stones.