BATON ROUGE — It's a common question urologist Aaron Potretzke hears from his patients about kidney stone risks.

"So the question about what types of drinks or foods or any sort of dietary input may put a person at increased risk is one that I have found to be a lot of misconceptions,” Potretzke said.

His answer might surprise you.

"Generally speaking, there is no particular food or drink that's totally off-limits. Now, if you
undergo a metabolic stone evaluation, and we find out what type of stone you have and what sort of electrolytes or minerals you're putting into your urine, any individual may have certain foods that we ask them to shy away from,” Potretzke said.

He says the silver bullet when it comes to stone disease is almost always to increase your clear liquid intake.

"So the more urine you make, and that's a product of how much you ingest in terms of clear fluid, the less likely you will be to make a stone,” Potretzke said.

He says drinking beverages high in citric acid, such as lemon juice and lime juice, can be beneficial to kidney stone patients.

"Those are things, actually, for which there is a fair bit of evidence to suggest that those can prevent stones in the majority of patients,” Potretzke said.