Post-menopausal women with kidney or bladder stones are not prone to osteoporosis, but they do have about a 15 percent increased risk of another painful stone, shows research.Studying the data of approximately 150,000 post-menopausal women, the study found that despite the two conditions being clearly associated in men, the same did not hold true for women."We found that, unlike what has been reported in men, a woman having a kidney stone is not a risk factor for osteoporosis. However, having one urinary tract stone does put women at increased risk for a second stone," said Laura D. Carbone, chief of rheumatology section at the Medical College of Georgia at Georgia Regents University.Carbone said in the study that appeared in the Journal of Bone and Mineral Research.
However, women with a stone likely should work with their physician to reduce their increased risk of a subsequent stone.Having a stone also was known to put people at risk for subsequent stones, but the new study helps clarify the risk. The incidence of urinary tract stones is on the rise generally, particularly in women, with a 70 percent increase in the last 15 years.One link between the seemingly disparate conditions of stones and weak bones is an excess of calcium in the urine, which tends to be more common in men.When sodium levels are high, from eating too much processed or fast food, more calcium is eliminated in the urine. Over activity of the parathyroid glands, which regulate levels of calcium in the blood, is associated with both urinary tract stones and fractures of the vertebra in the spine.