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Pediatric researchers have found that children and adults treated with some oral antibiotics have a higher risk of developing kidney stones. The study team drew on electronic health records from the United Kingdom, covering 13 million adults and children seen by general practitioners in the Health Improvement Network between 1994 and 2015.
The team analyzed prior antibiotic exposure for nearly 26,000 patients with kidney stones, compared to nearly 260,000 control subjects. They found that five classes of oral antibiotics were associated with a diagnosis of kidney stone disease. The five classes were oral sulfas, cephalosporins, fluoroquinolones, nitrofurantoin, and broad-spectrum penicillins.
After adjustments for age, sex, race, urinary tract infection, other medications and other medical conditions, patients who received sulfa drugs were more than twice as likely as those not exposed to antibiotics to have kidney stones; for broad-spectrum penicillins, the increased risk was 27 percent higher.
The strongest risks for kidney stones were in children and adolescents. The risk of kidney stones decreased over time but remained elevated several years after antibiotic use. Antibiotics alter the composition of the human microbiome-the community of microorganisms in the body.
Disruptions in the intestinal and urinary microbiome have been linked to the occurrence of kidney stones, but no previous studies revealed an association between antibiotic usage and stones. Change in prescribing patterns of antibiotics might decrease the current epidemic of kidney stones in children.
haleplushearty.org