Association Between Physical Activity and the Prevalence of Kidney Stones in American Adults: Results From a Multiyear National Survey

Objective To investigate the association between physical activity and the prevalence of kidney stones. Methods A cross-section study was conducted using data from National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey 2007-2018. Physical activity was evaluated based on the Global Physical Activity Questionnaire. Multivariable logistic regression was performed to elucidate the association between physical activity (patterns, intensity, duration and frequency of moderate and vigorous physical activity) and the prevalence of kidney stones after adjusting for potential confounders. Stratified and interaction analyses were conducted to detect potential effect modifiers. In addition, physical activity was assessed using metabolic equivalent and physical volume, and followed the regression above. Water intake was obtained from the day 2 dietary recall and was included in the sensitivity analysis. Results A total of 34,390 participants were included in the analysis. The multivariable logistic regression revealed that individuals who engaged in moderate physical activity for 30-60 minutes per day had a significant inverse association with the prevalence of kidney stones in the fully-adjusted model (OR=0.804, 95%CI 0.700 to 0.923), while no more significant finding was observed for other physical activity parameters. Interaction and stratified analyses indicated no covariate modifying the association. The results above were robust in the sensitivity analysis. Conclusion The duration of moderate physical activity (30-60 mins/day) is inversely associated with the prevalence of kidney stones, while no more significant association was observed between other physical activity parameters (including patterns, intensity, duration and frequency of vigorous physical activity, frequency of moderate physical activity) and kidney stones. Data availability Data available in a publicly accessible repository that does not issue DOIs. Publicly available datasets were analyzed in this study. These data can be found here: https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nhanes/index.htm.