Type 2 diabetes and uric acid stones: A powder neutron diffraction investigation

Recent epidemiologic investigations have identified an association between type 2 diabetes and uric acid kidney stones. This association was more apparent in women than in men. In this paper, we show through powder neutron diffraction that particle sizes of uric acid kidney stones were significantly different between male and female patients (84.7 ± 5.3 vs. 140.2 ± 6.7 nm, p = 0.000003). Interestingly, when type 2 diabetes appeared, this structural difference between male and female vanished (76.1 ± 3.9 vs. 78.8 ± 4.2 nm, not significant). Thus, the complete set of structural data is in line with observations regarding epidemiological data. Some explanations based on supersaturation are discussed.