Kidney stones affect hundreds of thousands of people yearly, making trips to the emergency room necessary. But a recent study suggests that taking a thrilling ride on a roller-coaster may be effective, too.
Dr. David Wartinger, a professor emeritus at the Michigan State University College of Osteopathic Medicine, had been hearing stories of patients passing kidney stones while at amusement parks. He decided to conduct a scientific study into the subject to find out if there was any truth to it, CBS News reports.
Wartinger, who hails from East Lansing in Michigan, relates that every spring break, the town empties as everyone heads south to Florida. His patients would report back to him on how they had passed kidney stones. He says,
I had a patient who passed three stones in a row on three consecutive rides.
Urologists often hear of patients passing kidney stones after activities that involve plenty of knocking about. Wartingers says one recommendation for those suffering from kidney stone pain, when the stones are small enough to get dislodged, is to stay active and drink plenty of water then see if the stones pass on their own. The intent is to keep patients from having to undergo medical procedures like lithotripsy. “This kind of vibratory bouncing around activity is known to be helpful among urologists, but it’s never been studied,” Wartinger says.
Wartinger and his team used a 3D printer to create a model of a kidney. The model was filled with real kidney stones of three different sizes and real urine. Then the researchers went off to Disney World where they took their faux kidney on Big Thunder Mountain.
True enough, the roller coaster conducted enough activity to jog the stones from the model kidney, which had been put in an anatomically correct position inside a backpack.
The researchers found that the back of the roller coaster provided the best results, with a passage rate of almost 64%, while the front seats yielded a passage rate of 17%.
Kidney stone patients with a phobia for wild roller coaster rides can rest easy. A relatively moderate roller coaster seems to be enough to dislodge stones, like Big Thunder Mountain which is moderate compared to the likes of Space Mountain. Wartinger says, “I suspect that for every patient, there is probably a roller coaster or activity that would be most likely to dislodge their stone.”
The researchers also went on a low-excitement railroad ride to test if it would yield results, but found that no stones passed on that ride.
Wartingers says the study needs to be conducted on real patients, but he says their results are promising and support osteopathic medicine that focuses on the body’s natural healing abilities. Roller coasters might just be a “relatively low-cost, non-invasive treatment that could prevent suffering for hundreds of thousands of patients.”
The study was published in the Journal of the American Osteopathic Association.
