Lemonade therapy? Doctor says lemonade reduces kidney stone risk

Summer beverage stabilizes existing stones, prevents new ones

When life gives you kidney stones, drink lemonade?

Okay, that might not be exactly the way the saying goes, but doctors say it's good advice.

Kidney stones are a hard collection of minerals and other elements normally found in urine. Doctors are seeing more and more kidney stones in children and teenagers and believe diets high in salt and low in water are to blame.

Experts say drinking more lemonade may help prevent them.

"It has the stuff that stabilizes stones, but it has a lot less of the stuff that can form stones, so we tell people to drink lemonade," said Dr. Jeffrey Donohoe, a pediatric urologist at Cleveland Clinic Children's.

Donohoe tells his patients to drink a glass or two of lemonade each day, but skip the super-sweet store-bought kind. Instead, he recommends squeezing pure lemonade from fresh lemons.

Lemon juice contains citric acid, which helps stop existing stones from getting bigger and also helps prevent crystal deposits in the kidneys from turning into kidney stones. Lemon juice is also low in oxalate, a substance which contributes to kidney stone formation.

Hydration is key in preventing kidney stones too. Since most children are not drinking enough water, lemonade can help boost their fluid intake and flush away substances that could form a kidney stone.

Donohoe says he typically sees kidney stones in teenagers, so he recommends teens drink plenty of water in addition to the lemonade.

"I tell them that they should drink enough water to make two liters of urine a day, which is generally two liters of water a day, sometimes more," said Donohoe.