Kidney Stones Become A Trend In The Young Generation, What Causes It?

Illustration (Pexels/Andrea Piacquadio)

JAKARTA - Tens of years ago, kidney stones were a disease that is often experienced by the elderly (elderly). However, currently many patients with kidney stones are young.

Kidney stones are metabolic disorders, which are also known as nefrolithiasis. These diseases occur because minerals such as calcium, oxalat, and phosphorus accumulate in urine and form yellowish hard crystals, small in size as sand grains or as big as golf balls in severe cases.

Experts do not know for sure why many young people, both children and adolescents, also experience kidney stones. However, experts speculate that many of the causes of generation can be hit by kidney stones.

Starting from foods that are consumed, it contains ultra-process foods, increasing the use of antibiotics at the beginning of life, to climate change which causes more and more cases of dehydration that can have an impact on the kidneys.

Launching from NBC News, on Friday, December 6, 2024, a doctor said that many children are hit by kidney stones in the summer, compared to other seasons. In adults, kidney stones are associated with conditions such as metabolic syndrome, obesity, hypertension, to diabetes.

However, cases of kidney stones in children and adolescents were not found in these conditions. This further strengthens the suspicion that environmental and climate change is one of the factors that causes kidney stones in the younger generation.

"In children, we don't see that. They are healthy and suddenly come with their first kidney stone, for no apparent reason. This is clearly something that has changed in our environment, which causes this rapid change," said Dr Gregory Tasian, a child urologist at Philadelphia Children's Hospital.

Meanwhile, a 2016 study led by Doctor Tasian revealed the facts about the kidney stone case. The study involved nearly 153,000 adults and children in South Carolina who received emergency care, hospitalization, or surgery for nefrolithiasis.

The study found that annual kidney stone disease increased 16 percent from 1997 to 2012. The biggest increase occurred in those aged 15 to 19 years.

In this age group, 52 percent higher kidney stones occur in girls and adult women. This disease in men is more common from the age of 25.