Fasting and the Stone

[aofl]

File this under the dangers of religeon, I guess.

A co-worker of mine is Muslim. During the recent holidays he decided he would do, in his words, ``hard core fasting'' which meant not taking liquids during the day-time as well as not taking food.

It came to pass (so to speak) that after several weeks of this he developed a kidney stone so bad he had to be hospitalized during what turned out to be a busy and critical week at work (of course being the selfish person I am, I'm going to relate this to how it affected me, but his pain must have been excrutiating).

The stone actually blocked his urinary tract and had to be taken out surgically and he was laid up a couple of weeks. Since then, of course, he's changed his tune and now is a strong believer in drinking copious amounts of water every day and has been preaching the same to everyone he knows.

Linking the stone to his fasting is just a guess on the part of those in the office (one person claimed to have a relative that had the exact same thing happen to him).

Has anyone else heard this is true? The stone was real, but is the connection false? What kind of research has been done on the cost of religious practices like this?

Thanks,

DB

 

[Hellbound]

From what I've heard (and I'm not a doctor, by the way, but I am a military medic and saw a lot of this in Iraq) is that periods of dehydration and rehydration can cause the stones.

During dehydration, the kidneys start losing fluid and collecting waste. When you rehydrate, they regain fluid, swell, and this causes bits of the waste to break off and be flushed through. So yes, going without fluids during the day and then drinking in the evenings could very well be a contributing factor to the development of stones.

There are those with more knowledge (ThirdTwin, for one) that may correct and/or clarify my statements