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Painful reminders

(BBC 13/09/2009)

Trudy O'Neill has collected pots of unusual stones. The stones are shaped like coral and vary from the size of grit to as large as five millimetres. "They are not as pretty or as expensive as diamonds, but they are just as hard to come by," said Trudy. For the last 10 years Trudy's body has developed hundreds of these kidney stones - some have been passed painfully through her urine, others have been removed by doctors.

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Fruit, vegetables and grain cut risk of kidney stones

(The Scotsman 14/08/2009)

EATING a healthy diet each day keeps kidney stones away, scientists have found. The complaint, linked to risk factors for heart disease, can be avoided by consuming little salt, red and processed meat, and sweet drinks, while loading up on fruits, vegetables, nuts and whole grain. A team from Maine Medical Centre looked at lifestyle investigations involving 200,000 people. High scorers ate the low-risk foods, more calcium, potassium, magnesium, oxalate and vitamin C and less sodium.

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Pictured: The 2.5lb kidney stone the size of a coconut surgeons removed from a man's stomach

(Daily Mail 20/01/2009)

The largest kidney stones most doctors ever get to see is the size of a golf ball. So surgeons in Hungary were taken aback when they removed a stone the size of a coconut from a man earlier today. Sandor Sarkadi underwent an abdominal operation in Debrecen, 150 miles east of Budapest, after doctors discovered he had a kidney stone inside him that was 17 centimetres in diameter.

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Probiotic hope for kidney stones

(BBC 09/03/2008)

Treating patients with bacteria may help reduce their risk of repeatedly developing kidney stones, a study suggests.

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