September 17/London/Press Association Mediapoint -- Eating low-fat dairy products and plants could help protect against kidney stones, research showed.

A diet designed to prevent high blood pressure - high in fruits, vegetables, nuts, dairy products and whole grains, and low in sweetened drinks and red and processed meats - reduces the risk of developing the condition, a study found.

Researchers in the U.S. studied urine samples from 3,426 people with and without a history of kidney stones.

Those who followed the so-called Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension (DASH) diet excreted more urine than those who did not follow the diet, despite similar fluid intake, they found.

The urine of DASH consumers contained a higher concentration of citrate -- an important inhibitor of calcium stones, which are the most common type of kidney stone -- than the urine of others in the study.

The research indicated there may be other, possibly unidentified, kidney stone inhibitors in dairy products and plants, keeping stones from reappearing in sufferers.

The study, published by Eric Taylor of Brigham and Women's Hospital, Harvard Medical School and Maine Medical Centre, and his colleagues appears in an upcoming issue of the Clinical Journal of the American Society of Nephrology.

Kidney stones, which are hard lumps of crystal formed by the waste products in the kidneys, are quite common and can cause severe pain.

From the October 4, 2010, Prepared Foods E-dition