“I’ve got a stone.”

That’s what Kramer reluctantly told his buddy Jerry after consulting with his doctor. If you’re a Seinfeld fan, you no doubt remember this episode.

What was this “stone”? Only the worst kind: a kidney stone.

While kidney stones can form in women, they’re typically the plague of men – men being four times more likely to get these crystalline concretions that form in the urine. Initially, these stones formations are small – smaller than a grain of sand – but they can grow over time, causing serious pain in the groin area as urine builds up behind the stone and cannot pass.

Most kidney stones pass through the ureter, into the bladder and out through the urethra without a problem. But should one of sufficient size get lodged in the ureter – the canal that connects the kidney to the bladder – then some serious writhing of pain is made manifest, as the kidney stretches due to the back-up of urine.

It’s every bit as painful as it sounds, and it’s even more painful when it’s eventually passed (it may have to be removed if it grows to be too big to pass through the urethra).

No one really knows the ultimate cause of kidney stones, but virtually everyone that’s studied them has a theory. Some suspect they’re hereditary, others say they’re due to the diet. Some even say that their formation depends on the geographical location one lives in! While everyone has an opinion on how one forms, no one wants one.

So, how does one avoid a kidney stone? With a slice of lemon.

That’s right, according to researchers from Loyola University in Chicago, lemons contain a high concentration of citrates, which help deconstruct the salts that conglomerate and eventually form kidney stones (doctors treating people with kidney stones often prescribe potassium citrate).

So does this study mean that people are free to drink up their favorite sugary lemonade concentrates? Absolutely not! Many of these lemonades are high in sodium and a high sodium diet is the exact opposite way to get rid of a kidney stone (high sodium contributes to their formation). What researchers from Loyola University’s Stritch School of Medicine suggest is using an actual lemon to tart up one’s water. So lemonade is fine, but make sure it’s the real stuff, not the artificially-flavored lemonade that predominates lemonade selections today.

Of course, this being the wintertime, perhaps lemonade isn’t the drink that warms hearts and souls on chilly nights. Instead, look for other ways to use lemon to keep those citrates up, such as by adding lemon slices to chicken, slicing up avocado for use in salads, but keeping the avocado bathed in lemon juice (the lemon juice will mix in with whatever it is your eating, but won’t be so tangy that it will make your salad taste sour) or simply squeeze some lemon straight from the lemon itself into your glass of water.

Just as one might want to increase their lemon consumption, there are those foods one might want to avoid, due to their high amounts of oxalate – the primary chemical that makes up kidney stones. Unfortunately, most of the foods that contain high amounts of oxalate are great for you, like spinach, beets, swiss chard and wheat germ.

Many doctors believe that kidney stones are hereditary. As such, it might behoove you to consult with your doctor if it runs in your family and whether or not you need to take the above mentioned steps to avoid the dreaded “stone.”