Dietary stone prevention: Opinion-high/low calcium intake

Abstract

The role of dietary calcium in calcium stone formation is controversial. Historically, dietary calcium has been advocated because hypercalciuria is the most common metabolic abnormality identified in 24-h urine collections obtained from stone formers (Levy et al. 1995). Furthermore, medications that reduce urinary calcium have been showed in randomized trials to reduce the rate of recurrent stone formation (Pearle et al. 1999). However, recent studies have suggested that not only might dietary calcium restriction be ineffective in preventing recurrent calcium stones, but this measure has the potential to result in loss of bone mineral density.