Urinary acidification in renal stone patients from northeastern Thailand

Hypokalemia, hypokaliuria and hypocitraturia are common findings in patients with renal stone disease in Northeastern Thailand. However, hyperchloremic metabolic acidosis seldom is seen. Therefore, we studied renal acidification in 29 renal stone disease patients who were living in rural Northeast Thailand. Baseline blood and average 24-hour urine biochemical parameters were measured. Hypokalemia, hypokaliuria and hypocitraturia were found in 10%, 83% and 93% of the patients, respectively. By multiple regression, urinary citrate excretion correlated positively with serum potassium and urinary potassium excretion, and negatively with urinary ammonium (r = 0.640, p = 0.005). An abnormal response to acid loading was found in only 1 patient. Thus, hypokaliuria and hypocitraturia in our renal stone disease subjects were infrequently due to distal renal tubular acidosis. Perhaps potassium depletion might be a contributing factor in these metabolic abnormalities.