Right here’s how lemon juice might fend off kidney stones

A shock ingredient might clarify how lemon juice places the squeeze on kidney stones.

Lemons comprise nanoparticles that, when fed to rats, block stone formation, scientists report within the Feb. 22 Nano Letters. If the tiny sacs do the identical for people, the nanoparticles may sooner or later provide a method to forestall kidney stones in individuals, says pharmaceutical scientist Hongzhi Qiao of Nanjing College of Chinese language Drugs.

Lemon juice is a well known house treatment for kidney stones, which kind when minerals crystalize and clump up contained in the kidney (SN: 9/21/18). These rocky lumps can knock round within the urinary tract, slicing and dicing tissues as they finally go out of the physique (SN: 10/31/16). “It’s so, so, so painful,” says Jingyin Yan, a nephrologist at Baylor School of Drugs in Houston who was not a part of the brand new examine. Sufferers might really feel sharp ache of their again, aspect or decrease stomach once they go a stone, she says. “Individuals describe it as worse than delivering a child.”

Although some drugs might help deal with kidney stones, many individuals find yourself needing surgical procedure to take away them, says Thomas Chi, a urologist on the College of California, San Francisco, additionally not a part of the examine. Individuals usually think about kidney stones as tiny pebbles, however generally they bulk up like boulders, he provides. “I’ve taken out stones the scale of your fist.”

That’s why prevention is vital. Scientists already knew that citric acid, which supplies lemons their bitter energy, might do the trick by binding to the minerals that make up stones. However ingesting mouth-puckering lemon juice will not be so snug for sufferers, Qiao says.

A 2022 medical trial discovered that kidney stone patients had trouble downing 120 milliliters — a few half cup — of lemon juice per day. Swilling a great deal of lemonade may cause dental issues, too. Chi has had sufferers drink a lot that the acidic liquid ate away at their enamel.

So Qiao and colleagues seemed for different, extra palatable lemon-derived components which may assist forestall kidney stones. Inside edible and medicinal vegetation like ginseng, grapefruit and dandelion, his group has discovered extracellular vesicle-like nanoparticles, tiny sacs filled with molecules together with fats, protein and DNA.

These nanoparticles exist in lemon juice, too­­ — and the group fed them to rats that had additionally ingested a substance that promotes kidney stone progress. The zesty particles slowed stone formation, Qiao and colleagues discovered. The discovering suggests these particles curb growth of calcium oxalate crystals, the commonest offender of kidney stones. The particles also can soften the stones and make them much less sticky, the group confirmed. 

The brand new work challenges the standard knowledge on how lemon juice works to fight kidney stones, Chi says. Utilizing lemon nanoparticles to deal with individuals remains to be a good distance off, however the group’s outcomes maintain promise, he says. “The quicker you possibly can deliver a discovering like this in the direction of a human medical trial, the higher.”