Global Warming May Be to Blame For Increase in Kidney Stones

By: Drucilla Dyess
Published: Wednesday, 16 July 2008

An increasingly warmer U.S. climate may lead to more people suffering from kidney stones. Because dehydration is one of the risk factors for kidney-stone disease, and hotter temperatures cause more fluid loss, kidney stones are projected to become more likely, according to researchers at the University of Texas at Dallas and the University of Texas Southwestern Medical School.

After analyzing the frequency of kidney stones in the U.S. and studying expected nationwide average annual temperature increases, Tom Brikowski, Ph.D. and colleagues predict that by 2050, warmer temperatures will cause an extra 1.6 million to 2.2 million kidney-stone cases This increase represents up to a 30 percent growth in some areas.

Global warming may expand the higher-risk region of the Southern U.S. known as the "kidney-stone belt" into neighboring states. The states currently included are Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina and Tennessee. An increase in the number of kidney stone related health issues in the upper Midwest is also possible with the Chicago area alone getting up to 100,000 extra cases each year. Other countries may be affected as well. The report can be found in the July 14 issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

According to Dr. Margaret Pearle, professor of urology at UT Southwestern and senior author of the paper, "This study is one of the first examples of global warming causing a direct medical consequence for humans." She also noted, "There is a known geographic variation in stone disease that has been attributed to regional differences in temperature. When people relocate from areas of moderate temperature to areas with warmer climates, a rapid increase in stone risk has been observed. This has been shown in military deployments to the Middle East for instance."

Kidney-stone disease (nephrolithiasis) is a common health issue in which solid crystals form from dissolved minerals in urine. Both environmental and metabolic issues cause kidney stones. The lower the volume of urine, the higher the kidney stone risk due to the concentration of stone-forming salts. Therefore, kidney stones can form from either too little fluid intake or too much fluid loss.

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