Kidney stones grow and dissolve much like geological crystals

Author: Aimee Cunningham / Source: Science News

kidney stone slice — JEWEL BOX Shining ultraviolet light on this thin slice of a kidney stone reveals layers of crystal growth (green and light blue) interspersed with large gemlike structures (dark blue) that show where the stone has dissolved and regrown.

Mayandi Sivaguru and Jessica Saw/Bruce Fouke Lab/Carl R.

Woese Institute for Genomic Biology/Univ. of Ill.

It took a close look at crystal formation in Yellowstone’s hot springs to understand stones much closer to home. Growth and dissolution patterns found in rocks there mirror what’s going on with stones in our kidneys, says Bruce Fouke, a geobiologist at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, contradicting the medical dogma that kidney stones don’t dissolve.

Fouke, who usually travels to hot springs and coral reefs for his research on minerals and crystals, had never seen a stone that “doesn’t grow and dissolve,…

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