8 Habits That Prevent Kidney Stones

Dernière mise à jour : 15 août 2026

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Kidney stones are among the commonest problems I see, and most patients arrive after the pain rather than before it. When we go back over their daily habits afterwards, there is nearly always something that could have been changed. Here are the eight habits with evidence behind them.

If you only act on one, make it the first. Fluid intake does more than the other seven combined, and it is the only one that helps regardless of what your stones are made of.

• Centre d'urologie Hôpital de Bangkok Thaïlande Réservation en ligne 02-310-3009 bhquro@bdms.co.th
• Hôpital Samitivej Sriracha Chonburi 088-022-1445
• Hôpital de Bangkok Siriroj Phuket Réservation en ligne 099-424-1583 info@phuketinternational.com

8 habitudes pour prévenir les calculs rénaux

1. Buvez beaucoup d'eau — at least 2.5 litres a day, which reduces stone risk by up to 15%. In hot weather or with heavy physical activity, drink more to replace what you lose in sweat. A simpler test than counting litres: your urine should stay pale yellow or clear all day.
2. Keep your weight in a healthy range — obesity (BMI over 30) lowers urine pH and raises uric acid stone risk. Combined with a high-protein, high-sodium, low-fibre diet, it doubles the risk of forming stones.
3. Connaissez votre histoire familiale — stones run in families, and having a close relative who forms them raises your own risk about 2.5-fold. You cannot change this one, but knowing it is a reason to take the other seven more seriously, and to consider periodic imaging.
4. Do not cut out calcium — this is the one that surprises everyone. Most stones contain calcium, so avoiding it seems logical, and it is precisely backwards: low dietary calcium leaves more oxalate free to be absorbed from the gut and excreted into the urine, where it forms stones. Aim for 800–1,200 mg a day from food.
5. Go easy on oxalate-rich foods — dark chocolate, spinach, rhubarb, beetroot, nuts, tofu, potatoes, beans and black tea are the main sources. The aim is variety rather than elimination; keeping total oxalate under about 50 mg a day is the usual target.
6. Keep protein moderate — above 2 g/kg/day, protein lowers urine pH and raises urinary calcium, pushing up uric acid stone risk. Somewhere between 0.8 and 1.4 g/kg/day is the target, and it applies to plant protein as well as animal protein.
7. Avoid high-dose vitamin C supplements — ascorbic acid is metabolised to oxalate, and more than 1,000 mg a day in supplement form raises stone risk by around 40%. Vitamin C from fruit and vegetables is not the problem; the megadose capsules are.
8. Get more citrate — citrate is the body’s own stone inhibitor: it raises urine pH and binds calcium so it cannot crystallise. Citrus fruit is the natural source, and about 4 oz of pure lemon juice a day is the figure usually quoted. If you take it as lemonade, make it unsweetened — sugary drinks push stone risk the other way.

One thing that makes this advice sharper

The list above is sound general advice, but prevention works considerably better when it is aimed at your stone. Calcium oxalate, uric acid and other stone types respond to different measures — cutting oxalate matters for one and is largely irrelevant to another.

Two things establish that: analysis of a stone you have passed, and urine studies. If you have already had a stone, keeping it for analysis is genuinely worth doing — it turns generic advice into a plan. Where more than diet is needed, potassium citrate therapy is the medical version of habit 8. And if you want the background on why stones form in the first place, that is covered separately.

Si vous avez des antécédents de calculs rénaux ou si vous souhaitez un plan de prévention personnalisé basé sur votre profil métabolique, le Dr Soarawee Weerasopone propose des consultations spécialisées au siège de l'hôpital de Bangkok. Prendre rendez-vous. Les rendez-vous à l'hôpital Samitivej Sriracha peuvent être pris en appelant le service d'urologie au 088-022-1445.

Questions fréquemment posées sur la prévention des calculs rénaux

Avis de non-responsabilité : This content is written and reviewed by Dr. Soarawee Weerasopone, a board-certified urologist at Bangkok Hospital Headquarters. It is intended for educational purposes only and does not constitute medical advice. No medical advice, diagnosis or prescription is provided through personal messaging channels. Always consult a qualified healthcare professional before starting any medical treatment.