Does anyone know about soda/pop like Diet Coke or diet Pepsi and kidney function?

[Anonymous]

My dr took a urine and blood sample and said something about my kidney levels being high and asked if I had been taking advil or the likes. I haven’t been then she told me to stop drinking pop. She’s been trying to get me to stop drinking artificial sweetners and pop which I heard can affect your liver over time but I googled about the kidneys and it mostly says kidney stones. I ask her if I can increase my water intake to more than 64 oz if I get thirsty, she says that’s too much. I don't know why but I’m thinking throwing stop drinking pop was an add on but not because of my kidneys.

am I being apprehensive for no reason? Do you know if there’s truth to what she is saying?

[zeitgeist057]

64 oz is not too much, unless you are really small, like less than 40 kg, I wouldn't even consider that. I drink a minimum of 64 oz a day, and often closer to 128 oz.

Diet cola contains the same elements as regular cola, the only thing that is switched is artificial sweetener for sugar. So all those elements that make up kidney stones are still present. I also drink sugar free energy drinks and soda weekly, but I try to keep it pretty minimal, around four 16 oz cans a week, each containing between 160-300 mg of caffeine.

I do not know the specifics regarding cola, but I believe sodas contribute to the formation of kidney stones.

more at Huffington post

Some quick searching of peer reviewed academic journal articles and studies finds :

"15 relevant studies (10 cohort and 5 case-control studies) were selected for inclusion in the meta-analysis with 9601 cases and 351,081 total participants. In the dose-response meta-analysis, we found that each 500 mL increase in water intake was associated with a significantly reduced risk of kidney stone formation... Subgroup analysis and sensitivity analyses showed inconsistent results on coffee, alcohol, and milk intake. " (Xu, C. et al., 2015)

"Only caffeinated coffee and decaffeinated coffee and tea, but not caffeinated and noncaffeinated sodas, are associated with an ∼10% lower risk of kidney stone incidence" . (Peerapen & Thongboonkerd, 2018)

"Conclusion: Caffeine intake is independently associated with a lower risk of incident kidney stones." (Am J Clin Nutr 2014; 100:1596–603, as cited by Ferraro, et al., 2014) .

"Prominent risk factors for incident stones were body mass index (1.39,1.27-1.52), dietary sodium (1.38, 1.21-1.56), fructose, meat, animal protein, and soda. In contrast, protective factors included fluid intake (0.55, 0.51-0.60), a Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension (DASH) style diet (0.69, 0.64-0.75), alcohol (0.69, 0.56-0.85), water, coffee, tea, vegetables, fruits, dietary fiber, dietary calcium (0.83, 0.76-0.90), and potassium. Vitamin D (1.22, 1.01-1.49) and calcium (1.16, 1.00-1.35) supplementation alone increased the risk of stones in meta-analyses of observational studies, but not in RCTs, where the cosupplementation conferred significant risk." (Lin et al., 2020)

TLDR: Caffeine makes you drink more and urinate more, which reduces kidney stone formation. Fluids are good, more fluids are better. For me, the cap on fluids is closer to 128 oz than 64 oz. Obesity, sodium, and animal protein are higher risk factors.

The caveat to this is I don't know your specific situation and you could have other factors causing your doctor to want you to limit fluids to 64 oz or less. If you have heart or lung fluid build up that is very dangerous, fluid retention in general is not a good thing. In terms of "(your) kidney levels being high" I'm guessing you had elevated blood urea nitrogen and/or elevated creatinine levels in your urine.

https://www.mayoclinic.org/tests-procedures/blood-urea-nitrogen/about/pac-20384821

https://medlineplus.gov/lab-tests/creatinine-test/

I should also add I'm not giving you medical advice here, just a perspective and some articles from peer-reviewed studies; any decisions you make based on this information is your own responsibility.

References:

Ferraro, P. M., Taylor, E. N., Gambaro, G., & Curhan, G. C. (2014). Caffeine intake and the risk of kidney stones. American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, 100(6), 1596–15603. https://doi-org.libproxy.csudh.edu/10.3945/ajcn.114.089987

Lin, B.-B., Lin, M.-E., Huang, R.-H., Hong, Y.-K., Lin, B.-L., & He, X.-J. (2020). Dietary and lifestyle factors for primary prevention of nephrolithiasis: a systematic review and meta-analysis. BMC Nephrology, 21(1), 1–13. https://doi-org.libproxy.csudh.edu/10.1186/s12882-020-01925-3

Peerapen, P., & Thongboonkerd, V. (2018). Caffeine in Kidney Stone Disease: Risk or Benefit? Advances in Nutrition, 9(4), 419–424. https://doi-org.libproxy.csudh.edu/10.1093/advances/nmy016Xu,

Xu, C., Zhang, C., Wang, X.-L., Liu, T.-Z., Zeng, X.-T., Li, S., & Duan, X.-W. (2015). Self-Fluid Management in Prevention of Kidney Stones: A PRISMA-Compliant Systematic Review and Dose-Response Meta-Analysis of Observational Studies. Medicine, 94(27), e1042.

https://doi-org.libproxy.csudh.edu/10.1097/MD.0000000000001042

[MCheetah]

"Pop"? What redneck part of the US are you from? LOL! Well, at least you're not referring to all soda as "Coke" like the inbreds from the Deep South!

SODA, is unhealthy for many different reasons, with the kidney function being one of the lesser ones. You should drink it as rarely as possible. According to the little research I just now did, there seems to be both a disagreement and an agreement that diet sodas are bad for your kidneys. This is due to the artificial sweetener called aspartame. But they say it's only deadly for your kidneys if you drink diet soda daily. It's like the "are eggs good or bad for you" debate all over again.

But in general, avoid sodas to being a once every two weeks thing, if not outright avoiding them. And stop calling it "pop" like Hillbilly trash!

[SaoirseS]

From what doctors have told me and others, long term consumption of aspartame (the artificial sweetener in diet sodas) can cause kidney problems. I suppose it would depend on how much/how often you drink it, but I don't really know. I'd suggest talking to your doctor more about it and asking more questions. I had one member on staff who drank a liter or more of Diet Pepsi every day, and she developed kidney function issues as a result of it. Her kidney function improved once she quit drinking diet soda.

[Pyrofox]

Diet soda's aren't actually diet they are fake sweeteners that trigger the boddies "sugar" response without feeding it actually so in a sense your body then will start gobbling it from other sources in mass. To make up for it. Essentially making it where your metabolism might treat 1g of natural sugar as 3g cause its been naturally starved for sugar.

Anything with DIET on it is a lie in itself the only thing diet that should be related to health is eating a literal healthy diet.

And thats not even getting to the fact that diets soda's have been linked to a potiential higher risk of a various cancers. XD. And thats not even getting to the fact that most diet soda's are like drinking mass quanities of bud light vs actual high end beers. You quickily realize what its like to drink the "knock off" version. And that its better to drink the actual soda like 3x a week than drink the diet or lite version every day.

[loveslongnails]

You should listen to your doctor on this one. Diet drinks of any kind on a daily basis are definitely not good for you, and there is absolutely ZERO nutritional benefit in any kind of soda or pop, with or without sugar. If your kidney levels are already high, you're either drinking a ton of pop or you have other issues that are exacerbated by it. Adding more water to your intake will not mitigate the effects of excessive diet soda, or diet anything.

[Iron_Man]

I’ve never had any problems and I like Pepsi zero and diet Mountain Dew