Protein Shakes and Kidney Stones

[Pittsey]

So....

About 3 years ago I had kidney scans as I thought I was passing blood (I wasn't but it's a long story). I was given the all clear. About 6 months after I started to use protein shakes. Not intensively only 1 or so a day. But.... I may have added more powder to the liquid than on the label. Not by a lot. But possibly 1.5 times.

So....

I now have a 1 cm stone in my kidney. I am thinking it was the powder. Do you think that is right? Would Soya Protein have the same stone problem as Whey? Would brown rice protein and other plant based proteins? I stopped consuming milk products a couple of months ago.

Was it because I added too much protein per liquid? Or should I avoid all protein powders altogether in people's opinions?

I really want to do all I can to avoid further stones...

I know this will have people on both sides, but I'm interested to hear.

 

[Glockmatic]

Did you change anything else in your diet when you started drinking protein shakes? Also, what brand are you drinking? Unlike food labels, supplement labels aren't regulated. There was a debunking of certain protein powders on reddit (with the help of other forums as well) you can see the results here https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0Ag9uT-E4EIL7dFZPZnR0WVZybGtFWnRKNzdKNm9XOVE#gid=0

How much protein do you think you are taking in each day?

 

[Pittsey]

Did you change anything else in your diet when you started drinking protein shakes? Also, what brand are you drinking? Unlike food labels, supplement labels aren't regulated. There was a debunking of certain protein powders on reddit (with the help of other forums as well) you can see the results here https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0Ag9uT-E4EIL7dFZPZnR0WVZybGtFWnRKNzdKNm9XOVE#gid=0

How much protein do you think you are taking in each day?

Nope. My diet was pretty much the same. But not a good diet.

It was a protein powder from myprotein. Which is a pretty popular site in the UK. Their protein powders are supposed to be pretty good. I was only taking about 40g from powder. And I wasn't really taking account of the rest of my intake. Just normal eating. Not trying to consume anything extra.

 

[Jokerman]

Excess protein can very well lead to kidney stones, esp if your sodium intake was high and you weren't drinking enough water. Or if you already had some underlying kidney stress. Didn't you say you had an osteoporosis problem? Hard for you to absorb calcium? Excess calcium in the urine is how kidney stones form. So if you were taking a lot of calcium and a lot of it wasn't being absorbed into your bones, that would be a big cause of stones.

 

[Pittsey]

I also didn't drink a lot of water until I got the stone. Now I try to drink over 2L a day. Have managed it for a couple of months now.