Dietary factors and medullary sponge kidneys as causes of the so-called idiopathic renal leak of calcium.

Out of 89 stone formers with idiopathic hypercalciuria, 51 remained hypercalciuric on a low calcium diet over 5 days: a renal leak of calcium could thus have been suspected in them. Dietary factors such as high sodium or high animal protein intake, and metabolic factors such as obesity with or without hyperinsulinemia, which all might account for the hypercalciuria of these patients, have been evaluated. This evaluation revealed conditions known to be associated with hypercalciuria in 37 of these 51 patients: 15 had hypercalciuria related to a high sodium intake, 7 had severe hyperuricosuria (greater than 1 g/24 h) reflecting a high animal protein intake, 20 were obese (greater than 120% of ideal weight) with (7 cases) or without (13 cases) concomitant high fasting plasma level of insulin (greater than 18 microU/ml). A careful retrospective analysis of the intravenous pyelograms disclosed medullary sponge kidneys in 8 cases which had remained undiagnosed so far. One of them was studied histologically. Only 14 out of 51 patients had an otherwise unexplained hypercalciuria on a low calcium diet. It is concluded that dietary causes appear to play a key role in 'idiopathic' hypercalciuria, that the incidence of a primary renal leak of calcium among idiopathic stone formers is much smaller than initially thought, and that this condition can hide unrecognized medullary sponge kidneys.