Our study, using both food frequency questionnaires and 24-h dietary recalls assessments, first demonstrated that regular fish oil use was associated with a lower risk of new-onset kidney stones in participants with low or intermediate genetic risk of kidney stones in participants with low or intermediate genetic risks of kidney stones, but not in those with high genetic risks of kidney stones. The possible explanation may be that genetic risk plays a more important role in kidney stone formation, which could result in the benefits of fish oil against kidney stones being limited in populations with a high genetic predisposition, while people with low or intermediate genetic susceptibility to kidney stones are more prone to be affected by the use of fish oil. Our findings underscore the importance of fish oil intake against the development of gene-less-determined kidney stones.
We also found the harmful effect of ambient air pollutants and sedentary behaviors and the benefit of supplementation use of glucosamine on incident kidney stones, suggesting that oxidative stress may play a role in the development of urinary stone disease, and anti-oxidant supplements may decrease the risk of urinary stone formation.1,2 Future research is warranted to confirm our findings.
Written by: Xianhui Qin & Xiaoqin Gan, National Clinical Research Center for Kidney Disease; State Key Laboratory for Organ Failure Research; Division of Nephrology, Nanfang Hospital, Southern Medical University, Guangzhou, China.
References:
- Gan X, Zhang Y, He P, et al. Positive association between ambient air pollutants and incident kidney stones. Environ Sci Pollut Res Int. Published online November 23, 2023.
- Gan X, Zhou C, He P, et al. Inverse association of glucosamine use and risk of new-onset kidney stones in UK adults with less sedentary time. Prev Med. 2023;177:107738.