47 Global climate change is another environmental factor that affects stone disease rates. For many years the concept of global warming has been debated, and today it is more accepted as a legitimate phenomenon. The general consensus is that average global temperatures have increased.48 In addition, studies have documented the association between increased environmental temperatures and increased selleck products kidney stone rates.49 Two recent studies have shown the temporal relationship

between Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical exposure to high temperatures and the subsequent development of kidney stones. Evans and Costabile50 compared the time of arrival of US soldiers to Kuwait and the time to development of acute renal colic at a US military hospital. Doumerc and colleagues51 recorded temperature Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical and number of renal colic admissions at a French tertiary care center between 2002 and 2004. These 2 studies reported time delays between exposure to higher temperatures and clinical manifestation of symptoms of 93 days

and 2 months, respectively. Imaging studies to identify stones Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical prior to exposure to warmer temperatures were not done in these studies. Furthermore, epidemiologic studies in the United States have shown that regions with higher average temperatures have the highest stone rates.2,3,52 The correlation between increased environmental temperature and increased number of stone events supports the conclusion that global warming Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical has an impact on the development of stones. This has been recently addressed in a study by Brikowski and

associates.49 They examined how global warming alters regional distribution of kidney stones using a modeling technique. They predicted that, based on the effects of global warming, the percentage of people living in areas designated as high risk for kidney stone formation would increase Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical from 40% in 2000 to 56% by 2050, and up to 70% by 2095. This would result in a significant “climate-related” increase in kidney stone events. Our review demonstrated that there were decreases in stone prevalence among older age groups. This could be due to differences in sampling methods or subjects with stones dying at a younger age. The latter is certainly plausible as kidney stone formation has been linked to a number of medical comorbidities including obesity, diabetes Ketanserin mellitus, hypertension, chronic kidney disease, and cardiovascular problems.5,34,53–56 The body of evidence suggests that the incidence and prevalence of kidney stones is increasing globally. These increases are seen across sex, race, and age. Changes in dietary practices may be a key driving force. In addition, global warming may influence these trends. Overall stone prevalence has doubled in the United States since the 1964 through 1972 time period, although it appears to have stabilized since the early 1980s. Other countries with documented increases in prevalence include Germany, Spain, and Italy.