Association of dietary carotenoid intake with the prevalence kidney stones among the general adult population

This study was to examine whether higher dietary carotenoid intake levels were associated with a lower prevalence of kidney stones.

This study analyzed data from 2007 to 2018 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) project. Dietary carotenoid intake (α-carotene, β-carotene, β-cryptoxanthin, lycopene, and lutein/zeaxanthin) was assessed using two 24-h dietary recall interviews. Multiple logistic regression and weighted quantile sum (WQS) regression were applied to examine the associations between five dietary carotenoids alone, compounds, and the prevalence of kidney stones. The dose–response relationships were analyzed by restricted cubic spline regression.

A total of 30,444 adults (2909 participants with kidney stones) were included in the analysis. The mean age of the participants was 49.95 years and 49.2% of the participants were male. Compared with the first quartile, the fourth quartile of α-carotene (odds ratio [OR] = 0.82 [0.73–0.92]), β-carotene (OR = 0.79 [0.70–0.89]), β-cryptoxanthin (OR = 0.88 [0.79–0.99]), and lutein/zeaxanthin (OR = 0.80 [0.71–0.91]) were significantly and inversely associated with the prevalence of kidney stones after adjusting for confounders. The dose–response analysis showed a linear relationship between five dietary carotenoid intake levels and the prevalence of kidney stones. Further WQS analysis revealed that the combination of all five dietary carotenoids was negatively associated with and the prevalence of kidney stones, with the largest effect coming from β-carotene (weight = 0.538).

Our findings indicated that higher dietary carotenoid intake levels were associated with decreased prevalence of kidney stones, and increasing the intake of foods rich in β-carotene may prevent the development of kidney stones.