Natural Home Remedies to Treat and Prevent Kidney Stones

What is kidney stone disease?

Kidney stones are hard deposits of compounds normally found in urine that clump together in the urinary tract.

The most common type of kidney stone is calcium oxalate kidney stone, caused by too much oxalate and too little urine.

Kidney stones are usually treated with dietary changes and sometimes medication. However, there are also home remedies that can help prevent and even treat kidney stones.

How to prevent kidney stones at home

Drinking water

If you have kidney stones, or are prone to them, the first thing your doctor will probably tell you is to make sure you drink plenty of fluids.

Kidney stones form when certain minerals and salts in your urine clump together. Drinking plenty of water helps dilute your urine and flush it out of your kidneys and urinary tract, so the minerals and salts don't build up and turn into stones. No matter what type of kidney stone you have, drinking plenty of water has many benefits.

Health experts recommend that if you have kidney stones, you should drink about 3 liters of water per day.

Drink lemon water

Lemon juice may help prevent kidney stones — especially calcium stones — because it contains citrate.

Calcium and oxalate have an affinity for each other, meaning they stick together to form calcium oxalate. When this happens in the urinary tract, it leads to kidney stones. The citrate essentially “coats” the deposits so that more calcium and oxalate cannot accumulate.

A small 2017 study found that drinking two liters of water with 4 grams of lemon juice per day reduced the risk of stone formation from 1.00 to 0.13 per person per year.

Besides lemons, other rich sources of citrate are grapefruit, oranges, and tangerines.

Pomegranate juice

Pomegranate is commonly used to treat ailments like ulcers and diarrhea and it is also beneficial in treating kidney stones as it reduces calcium oxalate and is also rich in antioxidants.

In fact, pomegranate juice has two to three times more antioxidants than green tea or red wine. Antioxidants help prevent and reduce oxidative stress, which is linked to kidney stone formation.

Change your diet

Diet has a big impact on kidney stone formation. Experts recommend eating a diet that includes fruits and vegetables, whole grains, and a limited amount of heart-healthy protein to prevent kidney stones. The DASH diet (DASH stands for Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension) is one option that fits these guidelines.

In fact, a 2009 study found that people who closely followed the DASH-style diet had a 55% to 60% lower risk of kidney stones than those who did not.

It is also important to make sure you get enough calcium, especially with meals containing foods high in oxalate. Calcium binds to oxalate during digestion, helping to prevent stone formation.

Therefore, eating fruits and vegetables increases citrate in urine, which helps prevent stone formation.

There are also some foods that you can eliminate or reduce in your diet. Since calcium oxalate stones are more likely to form if there is a lot of oxalate in the urine, you should reduce your intake of foods high in oxalate, such as nuts, dark green leafy vegetables like spinach, soy products, and dark-colored sodas. Limiting meat and sodium intake can also reduce your risk.

Use more vinegar

Using vinegar may help prevent the formation of calcium oxalate stones.

A 2019 study found that the acetic acid in vinegar helps regulate citrate and calcium in urine — both calcium and citrate help prevent kidney stones from forming.

It is also thought that acetic acid may help dissolve existing kidney stones, making them easier to pass.

All vinegars contain acetic acid and you can use them in salad dressings and other dishes when incorporating them into your diet. You can also dilute vinegars like apple cider vinegar in a glass of water to drink daily.

Drink green tea

A study published in 2018 found that people who drank green tea had a lower risk of developing kidney stones than those who did not drink tea.

Brew some hibiscus tea

Hibiscus tea is rich in antioxidants and helps with hydration, both of which are important for reducing the risk of kidney stones.

Additionally, hibiscus tea has also been shown in a clinical trial to reduce uric acid levels in the blood and encourage its excretion through urine, thereby reducing the likelihood of kidney stone formation.

Hibiscus tea is also a diuretic, which means it helps your body get rid of excess water and salt through urine. Diuretics can help you pass kidney stones that have already formed, but they do not prevent stones.

Drink wheatgrass juice

It is believed that wheatgrass increases urine flow, making it easier for kidney stones to pass.

Wheatgrass is a rich source of vitamins and minerals, and is also said to have detoxifying properties for the body./.