What causes kidney stones?

Kidney stones are a type of kidney disease in our body, and in reality the incidence of kidney stones is quite high. In fact, careful people will generally find that there are often people suffering from kidney stones around us. There are many causes of kidney stones, a large part of which are due to the patient's own reasons. Therefore, before many patients go for treatment, the most important thing is to find the cause of their disease first.

To put it simply, kidney stones mean that there are stones on the kidneys in the body, and this disease can occur from time to time. Usually when kidney stones occur, the patient is in great pain, often accompanied by renal colic, and the duration of renal colic is not fixed.

Let’s talk about the causes of kidney stones.

The formation process of kidney stones is that certain factors cause the concentration of crystal substances in the urine to increase or the solubility to decrease, resulting in a supersaturated state. Crystals precipitate and grow and aggregate locally, eventually forming stones. In this process, the formation of a supersaturated state of urinary crystal substances and the reduction of the content of crystallization inhibitors in urine are the two most important factors.

① The formation of supersaturated state is seen in too little urine volume and excessive absolute excretion of certain substances in urine, such as calcium, oxalic acid, uric acid, cystine and phosphate; changes in urine pH: when urine pH decreases (<5.5), the solubility of uric acid decreases; when urine pH increases, the solubility of calcium phosphate, magnesium ammonium phosphate and sodium urate decreases; changes in urine pH have little effect on calcium oxalate saturation. Sometimes the supersaturation state is short-lived, which may be caused by a decrease in urine volume in a short period of time or a transient increase in the urine excretion of certain substances after a meal. Therefore, measuring the 24-hour urine volume and the urine excretion of certain substances cannot help determine whether a short-term supersaturation state exists.

② The inhibitors of crystal formation in urine are reduced. Normal urine contains certain substances that can inhibit the formation and growth of crystals. For example, pyrophosphate inhibits the formation of calcium phosphate crystals; mucin and citric acid inhibit the formation of calcium oxalate crystals. When these substances in urine are reduced, stones will form.

③Nucleation Homogeneous nucleation refers to the crystallization formation of a crystal. Taking calcium oxalate as an example, when a supersaturated state occurs, these two ions form crystals. The higher the ion concentration, the more and larger the crystals. The ions on the surface of smaller crystals are constantly falling off. Research suggests that only when the crystals contain more than 100 ions will they have sufficient affinity to prevent the ions on the surface of the crystals from falling off, allowing the crystals to continue to grow. The required ion concentration at this time is lower than when the crystal is just formed. Heterogeneous nucleation means that if two crystals have similar shapes, one crystal can act as a core to promote the aggregation of another crystal on its surface. For example, sodium urate crystals can promote the formation and growth of calcium oxalate crystals. If crystals form in urine and stay in a local area and grow there, they are more likely to develop into stones. Many crystals and small stones can be flushed out of the body through urine. When certain factors such as local stenosis, obstruction, etc. cause urine flow to be blocked or slow, it is conducive to stone formation.

From the above introduction, it can be seen that there are indeed many causes of kidney stones. The causes of kidney stones are generally the three introduced above. Knowing the causes of kidney stones is actually beneficial to the treatment of patients with kidney stones. Because only by knowing the causes of kidney stones can we truly cure the disease from the root.