Oxalates Cause Mitochondrial Dysfunction, a Key Hallmark of Aging
- © Nils Osmar 2025. April 25, 2025
- This post is not intended as, and should not be taken as, medical advice.
- See full Medical Disclaimer
Mitochondrial dysfunction is one of the key hallmarks of aging. According to a study called: The Mitochondrial Basis of Aging and Age-Related Disorders:
Aging is associated with progressive mitochondrial dysfunction that occurs due to accumulation of mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) mutations and increased reactive oxygen species (ROS) production that causes oxidative damage to cellular macromolecules, thereby leading to reduced respiratory chain activity and adenosine triphosphate (ATP) generation.
Mitochondrial fission and fusion play a vital role in the regulation of mitochondrial function, metabolism and quality control. Altered mitochondrial dynamics with chronological age can inhibit mitophagy leading to accumulation of damaged or dysfunctional mitochondria in cells.
Oxalates and mitochondria
The relationship between oxalates and kidney stones is well established. What is less well-known is that oxalates can cause severe damage to our mitochondria. This can hinder our cells’ ability to generate energy efficiently.
- Study: Oxalate induces mitochondrial dysfunction and disrupts redox homeostasis in a human monocyte derived cell line
- Study: Mitochondrial Dysfunction and Kidney Stone Disease
Oxalates increase inflammation
Oxalates also increase general inflammation in the body (tying them in with another primary cause of, and hallmark of, aging, i.e., inflammaging, a factor in many age-related diseases).
One study found that the presence of oxalates stimulated an inflammatory response in the monocytes (a type of white blood cell that plays in the immune system by fighting infections), potentially contributing to chronic inflammation when such exposure was prolonged.
Oxalate crystals can also contribute to both chromic and acute inflammation and pain, especially in soft tissues, joints, and muscles. Oxalates have also been found to disrupt the balance between antioxidants and reactive oxygen species (ROS) in our cells. An excess of ROS can damage a number of different cellular components, increasing our oxidative stress.
Mayo Clinic weighs in
A recent Mayo Clinic article states that when the body can’t eliminate excess oxalate, it can build up in the blood and then in other areas like muscles, bones, and skin. This is called oxalosis, and it can lead to various health problems. Kidney stones are one well-known manifestation.
Often, the first sign of hyperoxaluria is a kidney stone. Kidney stone symptoms can include:
- Sharp pain in the back, side, lower stomach area or groin.
- Urine that looks pink, red or brown due to blood.
- Frequent urge to urinate.
- Pain when peeing.
- Not being able to urinate or peeing only a small amount.
- Chills, fever, upset stomach or vomiting.
Visualizing the damage
I asked an AI video generator to help visualize the damage done by oxalates, in the form of sharp crystalline fragments being deposited in soft muscle tissue. Here’s one version of its answer:
Where do oxalates come from?
- Some oxalates ae produced internally, mainly from the breakdown of vitamin C.
- But most enter the body through eating foods high in them..
My experience with oxalates
- I’ve been eating a low-oxalate diet for the past 18 months. I recently added some foods with moderate to high levels of oxalates (celery, cucumbers and potatoes) back into my diet experimentally.
- For the past two weeks, as an experiment, I’ve been drinking cucumber/celery juice in the mornings.
- The first effect I noticed when I drank the juice was that, while I initially felt fine, two hours later I felt a little dizzy and nauseous. This would pass a few hours later.
- A more prominent effect was that I started getting severe muscle pain the day after working out: literally a feeling of stabbing pains in the soft muscle tissue in my back and shoulder.
- I was not “overdoing working out” and had not changed my workout in any way. When I avoid foods high in oxalates, I have zero pain after working out, regardless of how hard my workout was; when I eat oxalates, I can expect the next day to be miserable.
- The effect is so dramatic, and the pain so severe when it happens, that I’ll be going back to eating very low-oxalate and zero-oxalate foods and tossing out the foods I was making juices from.
- Not everyone experiences symptoms like I’ve described when eating foods high in oxalates. It may be that some people’s bodies are better at clearing oxalates than others’. Or it may be that they are setting the stage for long-term damage without any awareness of it yet. Many people experience damage such as the gradual formation of kidney stones without immediate symptoms. And they may attribute things like sharp pains in their soft muscle tissues to other causes, when oxalates are really the culprit.
Oxalate “angries”
- What I still find a little odd is that when the damage done by oxalates is brought up, people who think we should eat foods high in them become angry and defensive. I’ve had people literally scream at me that oxalates don’t matter, that “oxalates are a myth” (whatever that means), and that “all we have to do is eat calcium and we’ll be fine.”
- I first ran into this years ago during my years in the vegan community, in which some people had a strong passion about eating s0-called “superfoods” such as spinach and almonds which are often the highest in oxalates, and became furious at the notion that there might be plant-based foods which weren’t “good for us” and didn’t promote “healing,” but rather were a major cause of damage. (To be fair, not all vegans were angry at the suggestion that oxalates can be harmful, but some were prone to rages when discussing it.)
- Looking back on those years, during which I was eating huge salads of oxalate-rich foods and making smoothies from spinach every day, I remember a lot of back pain and general muscle pain. I thought it was because I was “getting older”, but it went away within a few months of adding animal foods back in and cutting way back on foods high in oxalates.
- At the time, I didn’t make the connection with oxalates; I now believe my pain and soreness in those days was being caused by my consumption of foods high in them.
- If you feel angry at the suggestion that they can be harmful, bear in mind that I’m not attacking your right to eat whatever you want, just pointing out possible health problems associated with some dietary choices. (It’s possible to eat plants and still have low oxalate intake; but it does take a conscious effort and attention to your diet, possibly giving up some “superfoods” along the way, to do so.) If you eat a lot of oxalates and feel great doing so, that’s fantastic. Just keep in mind that for many of us this isn’t the case.
- From an anti-aging perspective, knowing about the damage that oxalates do to our mitochondria, I would find it difficult to go on eating them. My experiment in adding them back into my diet was interesting, but the result is clear. I’ll be throwing out the cucumbers and celery, stopping the juicing, and going back to avoiding them.
So what to do?
We can reduce our consumption (and production) of oxalates by:
- Taking less vitamin C (the body turns it into oxalates).
- Eating low-oxalate or zero-oxalate foods.
- Soaking high oxalate foods before eating them (then draining and throwing away the water)
- Avoiding foods grown with synthetic fertilizers (they tend to be high in oxalates)
- Eating fermented foods (fermentation somehwhat lowers the oxalate contents of some foods, including beets)
The calcium question
- It’s true that calcium can bind to oxalates and help us excrete them, Magnesium can too. But we can still be accumulating some oxalates in our tissues without being aware of it. In my case, drinking green juice along with a source of calcium or magnesium doesn’t help.
Getting oxalates out of our bodies
Most of us have eaten foods high in oxalates all of our lives, sometimes rationalizing that they are “good for us.” So we are likely to already have some in our cells and tissues.
It takes time to get rid of them, and can be an uncomfortable process. Slowing or stopping our consumption of foods that are high in them is of course a first step. It’s also important to drink lots of water.
Sally Norton talks about her experience with oxalates in this video: Why she initially ate high-0xalate foods hoping they would benefit her health; how she realized they were actually causing many of her chronic health issues; how she began healing (slowly and painfully) when she removed them, and why she doesn’t necessarily recommend removing them all at once. She recommends choosing low oxalate foods for a period of time instead of zero oxalate, to prevent a condition called oxalate dumping.
For more about oxalate dumping, see this article.
Not medical advice
This article is not intended as, and should not be taken as, medical advice. I’m not advising that people eat any particular diet or take any particular supplement(s), just reporting on what I’m doing. Supplements, like medications and other interventions, can have side effects; I would encourage people to research both possible benefits and side effects before starting on any supplementation regimen, and consult with a medical professional about any issues which might have a medical component. See full Medical Disclaimer
Other resources
- My Youtube channel Pathways to Longevity
- My Facebook group: Anti-Aging and Life Extension,
