There are a few reasons why this popular fruit should be added to your diet when you’re looking to prevent kidney stones. Notably, it’s got lots of potassium, vitamin B6, and magnesium. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, one medium banana of 118 grams has 422 milligrams of potassium, 0.433 milligrams of vitamin B6, and 31.9 milligrams of magnesium.
Potassium is thought to prevent the formation of kidney stones by reducing the amount of calcium that gets flushed out of your system. When a lot of the element is flushed out, the remaining excess oxalate doesn’t have the chemical to bind with. This means it won’t leave your body as poop but make its way to your urine. Here, they can clump together and form kidney stones. According to a 2022 study conducted by Mayo Clinic researchers and published in Mayo Clinic Proceedings, a low calcium and low potassium diet were found to be even more important predictors of recurrent kidney stones than fluid intake.
The role of vitamin B6 in kidney stone prevention is a nuanced one. Scientists have found links between vitamin B6 deficiency and calcium oxalate kidney stone development. In fact, the deficiency was also associated with renal damage, per a 2023 study published in Nature Reviews Urology. However, the same study notes that attempts to replicate the experiment on humans provided mixed results. Elsewhere, some research suggests that magnesium can prevent calcium oxalate crystallization in urine.