So you had a few too many brews over the Memorial Day weekend and now you’re wishing you’d stuck to soda. Not so fast say the authors of a study on nephrology. While beer may give you a hangover, it lowers your chances of getting a kidney stone:
 
“People who drank one or more sugary cola drinks per day had a 23 percent higher risk of developing kidney stones than people who said they drank less than one sugary drink per week. The risk increase was 33 percent for those who drank non-cola sugary drinks like fruit punch daily.
 
On the other hand, people who reported drinking beer and wine frequently had a 41 percent and 33 percent lower risk of developing stones respectively than people who did not consume the alcoholic beverages.”
 
More good news: The researchers also found coffee, tea and orange juice lowered the risk of calculi of the kidney, ureter or both. So you don’t have to drink beer or wine to avoid a condition that is far more painful than a hangover.
 
There’s good news for coders on the kidney stone front as well. According to our check of Medical Practice Coding Pro’s online code search, once you make the switch to ICD-10, you’ll only have one additional new code for this condition (N20.2 Calculus of kidney with calculus of ureter).