Drink plenty of water, avoid fried foods, salt for healthy kidneys

KABUL (Pajhwok): To prevent stones from developing in kidneys, doctors recommend drinking enough water and not eating too much greasy and fried food and salt.

Dr Abdul Ghani Basirat, a specialist in urology in Kabul, told Pajhwok Afghan News that kidney stones were a common disease that affected three to five percent of the world’s population.

He said kidney was considered one of the vital organs for the continuation of life.

According to him, stones formation has different factors, internal or unchangeable factors.

One of the internal factors can be genetic, people with a family history of kidney stones, if one’s r father or mother had the same problem, he/she is more likely to suffer from this issue.”

He said the second factor was age and stones started developing in ages between 25 and 50 years.

He pointed out that gender also played a role in the formation of kidney stones as men were more prone to kidney stones than women.

According to Dr. Basirat, based on research, men are three times more likely to develop kidney stones than women.

He added that one of the external factors was geographical. “Generally, people who live in hot areas, their body water comes out through sweat, which causes density in the urine and leads to the formation of stones in kidneys”.

The formation of kidney stones is higher in people who live in hot areas than those living cold areas.

Dr. Basirat said another external factor was season and usually more cases surfaced in summer.

“Lifestyle has also its effect, people who consume a lot of animal protein or red meat, eat a lot of salt and don’t do physical activity, they are prone to this disease and people who work in warm weather and don’t drink enough water also develop kidney stones.”

According to him, drinking less water is also a factor behind the formation of kidney stones.

He said drinking less than one and a half liters of water in 24 hours increased the risk of kidney stone formation.

He also said: “Research shows men are three times more likely to suffer from kidney stones than women:”

Dr. Basirat said stones formation caused pain in kidneys, sometimes unbearable and fever.

He said some patients complained about other diseases, but they were diagnosed with kidney stones formation.

“If the kidney stone is five to six millimeters in size, it does not need surgery and will remove with medicine and drinking a lot of water, but if larger than this size, surgery is required.”

He also asked all the people to drink enough water, avoid eating too much fried food, and use less salt.

He also said reducing the use of tomatoes, chocolate and salt could help prevent kidney stones.

Mohammad Zamir, a resident of Afshar district of Kabul province, told Pajhwok that his grandfather underwent a surgery today in Ariana Complex hospital remove a stone from one of his kidneys.

He said his grandfather had severe pain and the surgery was inevitable.

sa/ma