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Poor water drinking habits have been linked to a spike in kidney stone problem suffered by teenagers, reveals a new research. In the last 20 years, this kidney stone problem has seen a significant rise, more than doubled, said Greory Tasian, pediatric urologist and epidemiologist. According to Tasin, adolescents, girls, and African Americans were at greater risk. As a result, Philadelphia city agencies and the school authorities are working together to make water readily available in city schools. The most common problem faced by school admins is broken or rundown water fountains, say teachers and students, as reported by NH Voice

Earlier it was believed that kidney stones found in children is a sign of rare metabolic disorder. However, things have changed as even the healthy children are facing the problem of kidney stones so early in their lives. In their study, Tasian and his team of researchers analyzed as many as 153,000 medical records dated between 1997 and 2002 from South Carolina. In this duration, there was an increase in the kidney-stone incidents by at least 4.7% annually among the teenagers and 2.9% among the Americans and Africans annually. In most cases, these stones are extricated from the body naturally and in other cases, they are required to be removed surgically. If left untreated, they can pose a very serious problem that has been associated with increased risk of kidney infection and bone disease, as reported by Philly.com

However, since it is very rare in children, there is very little known about the condition and what would be the best treatment. According to the researchers, it is mostly due to lack of water intake. "If we can get adolescents to drink more water, we can very likely reduce the chance they are going to develop stones", affirmed the researchers, says Philly.com