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Alcohol may affect the risk of kidney stone (KS) disease because it is a type of fluid that can reduce the supersaturation of stone forming minerals. Furthermore, alcohol (particularly beer) is high in purine, which can promote KS formation. Here, we aimed to examine the independent association between alcohol use and prevalent KS disease defined as self-reports of any previous episode of kidney stone.
We examined The National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) 2007-2018, a large US population-based cross-sectional study, and used logistic regression analyses to determine the independent associations between different types of alcohol and prevalent KS disease. In the regression model, adjustments were made for demographics, body mass index, cigarette smoking, histories of hypertension, diabetes, thiazide diuretic use, dietary intakes of total calorie, protein, sodium, potassium, calcium, and fluid.
29,684 participants were included for analyses, 2,840 had KS. 78% of stone formers (SF) versus 80% of non-stone formers (NSF) had some alcohol exposure over the past 12 months (p=0.002). Among them, 43.8% of SF versus 43.5% of NSF drank beer only, 22.5% of SF versus 23.3% of NSF drank wine only, 24.8% of SF versus 17.9% of NSF drank liquor only, 8.9% of SF versus 15.3% of NSF drank non-selectively, p=0.001. When we examine the quantity of alcohol intake, SF tended to drink much less beer than NSF regardless of whether the intake was analyzed as a categorical variable or as a continuous variable. SFs drank less wine when the intake was analyzed as a continuous variable, but not when it was analyzed as a categorical variable. The quantity of liquor consumed appeared to be similar between SFs and NSFs. In multivariate analyses, higher beer intake was associated strongly with reduced odds of prevalent KS disease regardless of whether it was analyzed as a continuous variable or analyzed as a categorical variable, but drinking wine or liquor had no impact on KS risk, see table 1.
Our study showed that drinking beer but not wine or liquor had a strong independent association with a reduced risk of KS disease. Future prospective studies are needed to clarify the causal relationship between alcohol use and KS formation.