It might taste soda-licious, but your favorite bubbly beverage comes with a price.
Doctors have long warned that guzzling sugar-packed, calorie-loaded drinks on a regular basis can lead to problems like bad teeth and bulging waistlines.
But drinking too much soda can also lead to an excruciatingly painful medical condition that sometimes requires surgery to fix.
Brazil-based urologist Dr. Thales Andrade sounded the alarm after removing 35 kidney stones from the bladder of a man who downed 2 to 3 liters of cola every day.
In a horrifying Instagram video, he showed off a dish filled with large, yellow stones as the patient lay behind him on the operating table.
What are kidney stones?
They are hard objects that form in your kidneys when substances in urine — like calcium, sodium sodium, oxalate and uric acid — get out of balance, according to the National Kidney Foundation.
When there’s too much of these particles and not enough liquid, they clump together and crystalize, creating stones.
Once formed, the stone can either stay put in the kidney or start to travel down the urinary tract. Smaller stones might pass quietly in your pee, but bigger ones can get stuck — causing urine to back up and triggering intense pain.
That blockage also stops your kidneys from filtering waste properly. In those cases, doctors may prescribe medication to ease the pain and help the stone pass — or recommend a procedure to break it up or remove it.
Kidney stones are common in the US, where it’s estimated that one in 10 people will have one at some point in their lives. Every year, they send more than half a million Americans to the emergency room.
What are the symptoms of kidney stones?
Kidney stones can be as small as a grain of rice or as large as a golf ball. A Sri Lankan man recently set a Guinness World Record with a 1.8-pound stone the size of a grapefruit.
Generally, the bigger the stone, the more noticeable the symptoms.
Symptoms can include:
- Severe pain on either side of your lower back
- Stomach pain that doesn’t go away
- Blood in the urine
- Nausea or vomiting
- Fever and chills
- Urine that smells bad or looks cloudy
Why does soda sometimes lead to kidney stones?
“Drinking soda, especially those made with high fructose corn syrup, can increase uric acid levels in the body,” Kelsey Costa, a registered dietitian, told Eat This, Not That! “This can cause crystals to form in the kidneys, resulting in painful kidney stones.”
Phosphoric acid — a common ingredient in sodas, especially colas — also makes your kidneys more acidic, creating the perfect environment for stones to form.
On top of that, the caffeine in many sodas acts as a diuretic, pushing you toward dehydration, which can also help stones develop.
A study conducted by the National Institutes of Health found that people who knock back one or more sodas daily face a 23% higher risk of kidney stones compared to those who drink less than one serving a week.
Sugary drinks like artificial fruit punch can also up your risk. That’s bad news for the 63% of Americans who drink sugar-sweetened beverages daily, according to the CDC.
The good news: Cutting back helps.
In one study, kidney stone sufferers who gave up soda — specifically those that contain phosphoric acid — cut their chances of developing another stone by 15%.
“Maintaining adequate hydration and avoiding excessive consumption of soda are essential measures for prevention,” Dr. Andrade said in his video. “Kidney health begins with the daily choices of what we drink.”
What other factors can increase your risk?
Kidney stones most commonly affect men in their 30s and 40s, but they can strike anyone, at any age, including children, according to the Cleveland Clinic.
Dehydration increases your chances of stones, and so does eating lots of protein, salt, sugar, or taking large doses of vitamin C supplements.
Stomach or intestine surgery can raise your risk, as can certain medications, including some diuretics, calcium-based antacids and antiseizure drugs.
A family history of kidney stones boosts your odds of getting them.
Certain medical conditions also increase your chances of developing stones, including cystic fibrosis, diabetes, gout, high blood pressure, inflammatory bowel disease and obesity.
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