What I've learned this month: Kidney Stones; Osteoporosis; Prostate Cancer; Calcium intake

Kidney Stones and how to prevent them forming.

I have a kidney stone but the doctor is certain that it's old and will probably never descend. I think he really meant that it will never come down but he was being careful just in case the unexpected happens.

The Mayo Clinic Health Letter, September 2009, has the happy line that "you wont soon forget the pain of first passing your first kidney stone." Then it goes on to mention there's a 50% chance that you'll pass another one within 10 years !



What to do ? Prevention strategies concentrate on reducing calcium, uric acid and maybe oxalate in the urine.

• Drink a lot of fluid - 12 cups a day (preferably water)
• Reduce meat eating to less than 8 ounces a day
• Reduce sodium in your food

Now we come to the tricky parts:

• Vitamin D, which I take to help deal with osteoporosis, can increase the risk for kidney stones, if your body is predisposed to making calcium kidney stones.
• If your stones are of the calcium oxalate type then limiting oxalate containing foods is worth thinking about. We are talking about spinach, beets, peanuts, potatoes and chocolate. Of course, all of these are also a good way of increasing calcium intake to address any osteoporosis issues.
• Getting calcium up in your diet helps reduce oxalate absorbed in the intestine because calcium bind to oxalate in the intestine and blocks oxalate absorption.
  
• I get my calcium up via Greek yogurt and calcium citrate tablets. I also think that calcium citrate is easier to absorb if one is also taking a Proton Pump Inhibitor, such as Omeprazole like me, rather than calcium carbonate.

What about Prostate Cancer and Calcium ?
Always a cheery topic !

September, 2009 edition of Nutrition Action was, as usual, stuffed full of interesting bits but the piece starting "What can men do to lower their risk of prostate cancer ? 'Avoid high milk intake' says Harvard's Walter Willett" caught the eye.

The NIH and AARP study tracked milk drinkers for 6 years. The study found no link between prostate cancer and consumption of whole milk or non-fat milk or yogurt or cheese. However the study found that men who drank at least 2 cups of skim-milk a day had a 23% higher risk of advanced prostate cancer than those who drank no skim milk. Strange in the extreme.

So how might milk increase or encourage prostate tumors ?

One theory is that it's connected to IGF-1 (Insulin-like Growth Factor). Milk increases it and it's possible that higher levels of IGF-1 is related to more aggressive prostate cancer tumors. So why milk and not yogurt or cheese ? The theory is that the fermentation leading to both cheese and yogurt denatures IGF-1. Of course it might be the calcium. Excess calcium might account for the higher prostate cancer risk.

The Health Professional Follow-up Study tracked 47,000 men for 16 years and found that those who took in more than 2,000 mg a day of calcium had a risk of fatal prostate cancer 2 1/2 higher than those who took in less than 750 mg a day of calcium.

So what have I learned so far this month ?

Dealing with Acid Reflux (GERD) with a Proton Pump Inhibitor like Omeprazole might have lead to osteoporosis. Dealing with osteoporosis with higher calcium intake might, over time, lead to prostate cancer.

Somehow the chain has to be broken. At the moment I'm getting my supplemental calcium up to around 1,200 mg a day and getting all (nearly) all my dairy intake from yogurt and cheese. Normally I don't drink milk of any kind.