KUSA - Dr. John Torres from Premier Urgent Care answers your questions every week. If you have a medical question for Dr. John, send it to mornings@9news.com and make sure to have Ask Dr. John in the subject line.
Question
Morning Dr. John, I have had kidney stones, and will have one blasted on Thursday. In the past, 3 years they said my stones were calcium oxalate. To prevent they said to avoid high oxalate foods. The problem, I cannot locate any concrete list of foods with oxalate. I have found several however the pattern is no consensus, and they contradict each other. Example one says avocados low oxalate another high in oxalate. What can you tell me? Even checked with the kidney foundation. Thanks John
Answer
Being an ER doc I've seen a lot of patients with kidney stones and let me tell you, they are no laughing matter for the person involved. As a matter of fact you learn early on that the patient walking around the room in pain most likely has a kidney stone. They walk around because they simply cannot find a comfortable position. Kidney stones come in a couple of varieties. They most often can be calcium stones, uric acid stones or stones caused by infections. Calcium stones are the most common and can either be one of two types, calcium oxalate, like this viewer has, or calcium phosphate. Confusing enough? Basically though, if the stones are the calcium oxalate type then avoiding foods high in oxalate can help keep these types of stones under control. But like this viewer, many people have a tough time figuring out which foods are high in oxalate and which are low. Although avoiding foods high in oxalate can help, some high oxalate foods are worse than others at promoting kidney stones. These bad ones are spinach, rhubarb, nuts, chocolate, wheat bran, strawberries, and tea. Other high oxalate food or products include beer, green bell peppers and kale. Some of the products low in oxalate are bananas, brussel sprouts, milk, wine and oatmeal. All of the lists I looked at list avocados as low in oxalate so it looks like they are good to go. But in addition to a low oxalate diet, those suffering from kidney stones need to remember to drink plenty of fluids since dehydration can also lead to more kidney stones.
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