Kidney stones can cause severe pain and even loss of kidney function, and their incidence has been gradually increasing in recent years. Studying the risk factors for their development and reducing the incidence of the disease has become a concern for clinicians. One of the possible risk factors for the development of kidney stones is high environmental temperature. Although some studies have been conducted, they have some shortcomings, such as only studying the temperature in summer or special environments, the geographical concentration of the subjects, and the lack of evaluation of the delayed effect of temperature on the risk of kidney stone development. In addition, children are not fully developed physiologically and they are exposed to ambient temperatures for a significantly longer period of time than adults. Also, children in the United States rarely drink water or drink only beverages, and these beverages can increase the risk of kidney stones. All of these factors make children more sensitive to dehydration caused by high temperatures, which can lead to an increased risk of kidney stones. This is why this issue is of greater concern to pediatricians. So, Tasian, a urologist and epidemiologist at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia in the United States
Tasian, a urologist and epidemiologist at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, designed an experiment to study the relationship between heat and the risk of kidney stones. The experiment included researchers from the Universities of Los Angeles and California, the London School of Hygiene, and meteorologists from Rutgers University. The study collected all temperature data for the five cities studied (Atlanta, Chicago, Dallas, Los Angeles and Philadelphia) from ’05 to ’11.
The study included adult or pediatric kidney stone patients from the five cities. The study metric was the risk of kidney stones within 20 days of exposure to the average temperature in the different cities.
The risk of developing kidney stones within 20 days of exposure to the average temperature in each city and the time interval between exposure to risk factors and the development of kidney stones were studied. The results of the study showed that a trend toward an increased risk of kidney stones with increasing temperatures was observed in all cities except Los Angeles. And, in general, when temperatures were greater than 30
degrees Celsius, there was a significant increase in the risk of kidney stones across cities (36 to 39% increase in Atlanta, Dallas and Chicago and 47% increase in Philadelphia). In Atlanta, Chicago, and Philadelphia, the incidence of kidney stones was also found to increase somewhat in the winter when temperatures were low, but not as much as when temperatures were high. This may be due to the fact that most people do not engage in outdoor activities in the winter, and the increased incidence of kidney stones is due to the increase in indoor temperatures. The experiment also investigated the relationship between the delay in the development of kidney stones and the risk of developing them, and the risk of developing them was increased during the 20-day time window in which the risk of developing them was observed.
Within the 20-day time window in which the risk of developing kidney stones was observed, the highest risk of developing kidney stones was observed in the days following exposure to high temperatures, after which the risk of developing kidney stones decreased significantly. The authors hope that this study will raise awareness of the risk of kidney stones due to heat and dehydration, especially in children, and that they will adopt the habit of drinking more water.