Soda and other beverages and the risk of kidney stones

Not all fluids may be equally beneficial for reducing the risk of kidney stones. In particular, it is not clear whether sugar and artificially sweetened soda increase the risk.

We prospectively analyzed the association between intake of several types of beverages and incidence of kidney stones in three large ongoing cohort studies. Information on consumption of beverages and development of kidney stones was collected by validated questionnaires.

The analysis involved 194,095 participants; over a median follow-up of more than 8 years, 4462 incident cases occurred. There was a 23% higher risk of developing kidney stones in the highest category of consumption of sugar-sweetened cola compared with the lowest category (P for trend=0.02) and a 33% higher risk of developing kidney stones for sugar-sweetened noncola (P for trend=0.003); there was a marginally significant higher risk of developing kidney stones for artificially sweetened noncola (P for trend=0.05). Also, there was an 18% higher risk for punch (P for trend=0.04) and lower risks of 26% for caffeinated coffee (P for trend<0.001), 16% for decaffeinated coffee (P for trend=0.01), 11% for tea (P for trend=0.02), 31%-33% for wine (P for trend<0.005), 41% for beer (P for trend<0.001), and 12% for orange juice (P for trend=0.004).

Consumption of sugar-sweetened soda and punch is associated with a higher risk of stone formation, whereas consumption of coffee, tea, beer, wine, and orange juice is associated with a lower risk.