Kidney stones — once an issue primarily affecting middle-aged men — are becoming more common in children and teen girls specifically, according to a July 8 report from NBC News.
Large scale lifestyle changes including eating processed foods, receiving more antibiotics earlier in life, climate change and related dehydration may all be contributing factors, clinicians speculate.
Physicians also report seeing pediatric patient cases of kidney stones more often during the summer, as well, NBC reported.
For traditional kidney stone cases in older individuals, conditions like diabetes, obesity and hypertension are typically to blame, but that is not what physicians are finding in pediatric cases, they told the outlet.
"In children, we're not seeing that," Gregory Tasian, MD, pediatric urologist at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia told NBC. "They're otherwise healthy and simply come in with their first kidney stone for unclear reasons."
Research into this is ongoing, but kidney stones have been found in children as young as 5 years old, clinicians say.