Soda and Other Beverages and the Risk of Kidney Stones

Adults who drink at least one sugar-sweetened drink a day are slightly more likely to develop kidney stones than people who rarely imbibe them, according to a new study.

While the recommendation for kidney stone prevention has been to drink a lot of fluids, the study suggests that it's not just the amount of fluid but the type of drink that also matters.

Dr. Gary Curhan, the senior author of the study, said patients often ask for dietary advice to help prevent kidney stones.

While the recommendation has been to drink plenty of fluids, Curhan said, patients often ask, "what should I drink? There's a lot of lore out there." To see whether the type of beverage might matter, Curhan, of the Channing Division of Network Medicine at Brigham and Women's Hospital, and his colleagues collected data from three massive surveys of nearly 200,000 people.