Getting a kidney stone is a painful experience that sends over 500,000 people to the United States' emergency rooms every year. A resident physician claims that there's a surprisingly easy way to reduce your risk: Drink Crystal Light.
It may sound like an urban myth. But Dr. Hunter Norton (@norton_fam), who is in his second year of Urology Residency (PGY-2), is correct. Drinking Crystal Light lemonade may help prevent kidney stones.
As Dr. Norton explains in a TikTok about the correlation between Crystal Light lemonade and reduced risk of kidney stones, there's a simple scientific reason why it works.
The on-screen caption points out that Crystal Light contains citrate.
"What citrate does is bind calcium in our urine," Dr. Norton explains in the on-screen captions. "That actually decreases the amount of calcium in our urine that would be available to bind oxalate, which would form calcium oxalate stones, the most common type of kidney stones."
In fact, Crystal Light contains two kinds of citrate -- potassium and sodium. And Johns Hopkins Medicine notes those do help prevent kidney stones.
Kidney stones are hard objects comprised of millions of microscopic crystals. They form when certain substances attach to one another as urine passes through the kidneys.
There are four types: calcium, struvite, uric acid, and cystine. Calcium is the most common, as Dr. Norton points out, and the one that you may prevent by drinking Crystal Light.
Kidney stones can be as small as a grain of sand or much, much larger.
The largest recorded weighed an astonishing 1.76 pounds and was the size of a grapefruit. The stone that was removed from a man in Sri Lanka was 5.26-inches long, far too large for the traditional removal method, which is simply letting the stone pass. Happily, most are small enough to come out naturally. Though this process can be excruciatingly painful.
Once you get a kidney stone, your odds of getting another increase significantly. That's why it's important to try to preserve the stone so it can be tested to determine what type you have, as there are different ways to prevent each.
Doctors generally recommend upping your water intake and decreasing how much salt you consume to help prevent kidney stones. This can also help flush them out. The American Urological Association recommends drinking about 3 liters of fluid each day.
While Dr. Norton is correct that Crystal Light may help prevent kidney stones due to its citrate content, there are other ways to consume citrate.
Citrus fruits, in general, as well as melons, contain citrate. But Crystal Light lemonade packs a particularly powerful citrate punch. "A liter has about 20mEq of citrate, the same amount that is commonly prescribed to people with kidney stones with potassium citrate," per the Kidney Dietician.
Dr. Norton's post inspired a lot of people to vow to add Crystal Light to their diets. It also solicited another fun fact about kidney stones: There's a roller coaster that's known for helping people pass them. (Yes, you read that right.)
In 2017, a Michigan State University professor emeritus made headlines following a study in which he found that Walt Disney World's Big Thunder Mountain was surprisingly effective at getting kidney stones to pass.
Professor David Wartinger told CBS that patients told him they'd passed stones after riding the coaster, so he set out to see if there was any science behind their claims.
Using 3D models of kidneys with various types and sizes of stones in them, Wartinger and his colleagues determined that the ride is up to 70% effective at getting the stones to pass.
"In all, we used 174 kidney stones of varying shapes, sizes and weights to see if each model worked on the same ride and on two other roller coasters," Wartinger told CBS. "Big Thunder Mountain was the only one that worked. We tried Space Mountain and Aerosmith's Rock 'n' Roller Coaster and both failed."
So if the Crystal Light lemonade fails to prevent kidney stones, you may want to buy a ticket to Walt Disney World.
Dr. Norton didn't respond to BroBible's emailed inquiry.