Roller Coasters Could Help People Pass Kidney Stones, Says Study (nbcnews.com)

An anonymous reader quotes a report from NBC News: Two researchers who took science to the amusement park say they've found that a thrilling roller coaster ride just might help people shake out pesky kidney stones. Dr. David Wartinger of Michigan State University said he'd heard patient after patient tell him about how they had passed kidney stones after riding one particular ride: the Big Thunder Mountain Railroad roller coaster at Walt Disney World in Orlando. He and a colleague, Dr. Marc Mitchell, had also seen some media reports about people who passed kidney stones while bungee jumping and riding roller coasters. So they decided to leave East Lansing to head to Orlando in the name of medical research. To simulate the human body as best they could, they made an artificial human kidney model out of clear silicone gel and loaded it up with real human kidney stones. They rode the roller coaster holding their kidney contraption between them in a backpack positioned at kidney height. They took 20 rides and noted what happened to each kidney stone. Riding in the back of the roller coaster train seemed to really knock the kidney stones out, they reported in The Journal of the American Osteopathic Association. "Front seating on the roller coaster resulted in a passage rate of four of 24," they wrote. "Rear seating on the roller coaster resulted in a passage rate of 23 of 36." They mainly tested the one roller coaster ride, and it's a fairly simple one. "The Big Thunder Mountain roller coaster is not a terribly dynamic ride," Wartinger said. "It's not very fast. It is not very tall. It makes sharp left and right turns that have some vibration." Wartinger suspects many different thrill rides would have the same effect. "It's not like there anything unique about this one coaster," he said. The pair have now run their test 200 more times and say the findings are consistent. Now they want to try other amusement park rides.

Comments

In other words

[Anonymous Coward]

Science confirms the theory of thrill rides scaring the piss out of you

Re:In other words

[Tablizer]

I've had a kidney stone, and I'll tell you the LAST thing I wanted to do during all that pain was hop on a roller coaster. I didn't want to move, period, even after bigass pain meds.

It was the most painful thing I ever felt. I invented several new vowels and cuss-words, some Klingon, and repented to every deity I could think of. (Its effects vary per person and per stone, though.)

Re:In other words

[Opportunist]

Being in the club myself, I guess the idea is to go on a roller coaster ride BEFORE it clogs something and hence starts to hurt.

And for those that don't know the wonderful feelings of kidney stones that wedged themselves into some tender parts of yours, we're not talking about huge boulders. Something the size of a grain of salt can well become your personal nightmare.

How do we get the university to pay for our trips?

[ravenshrike]

"Well, the only thing at amusement parks that causes many rapid shifts in the human body are roller coasters. Now we need a reason to ride them."

"I know, we'll make up some bullshit about kidney stones."

  - 1 day of roller coaster rides later

"Holy shit, it actually had an effect. Now we have an excuse to come back here for the next 3 weekends."

Re:A question re: physics

[Opportunist]

G-forces are higher in the back of the train, at least for the downhill parts. While the front goes over apex points at a slow speed, the train is already picking up speed downhill when you arrive at this point with the back of the train. Of course the train, in total, goes at the same speed, but what matters is what point you're sitting at when it has a certain speed.