There’s a new trend among kids and teens, and this one isn’t from TikTok—it’s kidney stones.
Though kidney stones are usually most often seen in middle-aged men, doctors are reporting more incidents in young people, with teenage girls at a particularly high risk, according to research cited by NBC News.
Hospitals—including the Children’s Hospital Los Angeles, the Children’s National Hospital in Washington, DC, and the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia—have even started programs or opened clinics specializing in pediatric kidney stone treatment.
What are kidney stones? According to the Mayo Clinic, kidney stones are “hard deposits made of minerals and salts that form inside your kidneys.” Minerals crystallize and bond, creating the hard deposits, when the urine becomes concentrated. The stones can be as small as a grain of sand or as large as a golf ball (though that’s rare), and usually pass through the urinary tract.
Researchers aren’t sure why kids are getting kidney stones more often, NBC News reported, but they have several theories that point to antibiotic overuse, ultraprocessed foods, and climate change as contributing factors.
Antibiotic overuse: Antibiotics can change the gut microbiome in a way that makes it easier for kidney stones to form, Gregory Tasian, a pediatric urologist at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, told NBC News.
A 2018 study, of which Tasian served as lead author, found that patients who took any one of five commonly prescribed oral antibiotics were 1.3x–2.3x more likely to develop kidney stones. The risk was greatest when the antibiotics were given at a young age.
Antibiotics are often overprescribed in the US, and according to the CDC, about one-third of those prescriptions are unnecessary.
Ultraprocessed foods: Foods that are high in sodium—like potato chips, sandwich meats, and sports drinks—can cause excess minerals in urine, which can create kidney stones, NBC News reported.
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Kids in the US eat a lot of high-sodium foods. Roughly 90% of US kids between the ages of 6 and 18 consume excess dietary sodium, according to a 2016 CDC study.
Kidney stones are more likely to form if kids don’t drink enough water or drink too many beverages with high fructose corn syrup, according to NBC News.
Climate change: Hotter weather generally means more sweat and less pee, too. That combo allows minerals to bond in the kidneys and urinary tract, NBC News reported.
A 2014 study, of which Tasian was lead author, concluded that the hotter it is outside, the more people seek medical care for kidney stones. Another study from 2008 found that hotter states in the southeastern US—known as the kidney stone “belt”—have as much as a 50% higher prevalence of kidney stones than northwestern states, NBC News reported.
Doctors told NBC News they treat more pediatric kidney stones in the summer than in any other season.
A key difference: Kidney stones in adults are generally linked to conditions like metabolic syndrome or diabetes, NBC News reported. But kids with kidney stones are usually otherwise healthy, Tasian told NBC News.
It’s not known exactly how common kidney stones are in kids because most research in the area focuses on adults, according to NBC News. A 2016 study, of which Tasian was lead author, found that kidney stone prevalence increased 16% in all age groups between 1997 and 2012, with those between 15 and 19 years old seeing the steepest increase. In that age group, prevalence was 52% higher in girls.
Kids who get one kidney stone have a roughly 50% chance of getting another within five to seven years, according to the National Kidney Foundation.