Jan 16, 2016 06:45 AM EST By Rashmi Kalia, UniversityHerald Reporter

A new research study reports that an alarming trend is emerging with a growing number of teens, women and blacks being diagnosed with kidney stones, WTVM reports.

For the study, the researchers analyzed data from South Carolina for the years 1997 to 2012. They found that the annual incidence of kidney stones among children and adults rose 16 percent during that period.

The research revealed that the largest increases of kidney stones were among teens (4.7 percent a year), females (3 percent a year), and blacks (nearly 3 percent a year).

"The emergence of kidney stones in children is particularly worrisome, because there is limited evidence on how to best treat children for this condition," said study leader Dr. Gregory Tasian, a pediatric urologist and epidemiologist at The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia.

"The fact that stones were once rare and are now increasingly common could contribute to the inappropriate use of diagnostic tests such as CT scans for children with kidney stones, since health care providers historically have not been accustomed to evaluating and treating children with kidney stones," he explained in a hospital news release.

"These trends of increased frequency of kidney stones among adolescents, particularly females, are also concerning when you consider that kidney stones are associated with a higher risk of chronic kidney disease, cardiovascular and bone disease, particularly among young women," Tasian added.

The study noted that teen girls had the highest rate of increase in kidney stones, and they were more common among females aged 10 to 24, as compared to males in the same age group.

The findings were published online Jan. 14 in the Clinical Journal of the American Society of Nephrology.

Researchers attributed the rise in kidney stone rates to insufficient intake of water and poor eating habits.

Dehydration that leads to growth of kidney stones is linked to poor water intake and warmer temperatures. The researchers said that encouraging kids to drink more water might reduce their likelihood of developing kidney stones, according to Tech Times.

"If we can get adolescents to drink more water, we can very likely reduce the chance they are going to develop stones," Tasian said, according to Philly.

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