Glucose metabolism in renal stone formers

Epidemiological studies indicate that renal stone disease is a rapidly increasing problem, already affecting around 10% of the entire adult male population. It has been suggested that environmental factors are responsible for this development, among them particularly disorders of carbohydrate metabolism. In the present study, therefore, 156 patients with active renal stone formation were investigated with respect to glucose tolerance and glucose-stimulated insulin response. Similar to other reports it was found that hypercalciuric subjects had evidence of an impaired glucose metabolism. However, this was mainly attributed to a tendency towards overweight in this group of patients and there were no firm indications of a true disorder of carbohydrate metabolism connected with hypercalciuria or the process of stone formation.