A Chinese tofu-lover has had an incredible 420 kidney stones removed from his body.
The 55-year-old man, named only as Mr He, said after the operation on Friday that he ate tofu on a daily basis and drank very little water, which doctors say caused his kidney stones.
He went to the doctor last month in Zhejiang province in eastern China after experiencing severe abdominal pain and a CT scan found that his kidney was packed full of stones,
Mr He was booked in for an operation immediately because the stones left him almost unable to pass water, and any delay would have meant the kidney would have needed to be removed.
Dr Wei, the surgeon who treated Mr He, said that he was shocked by the number of kidney stones he found.
He said: 'I have never seen so many stones before. The operation took less than two hours of which 45 minutes was used to remove the stones
'At the end of the operation I realised my arms and legs were numb. The plate used to collect the stones had at least 420 of them of varying sizes and coloured green and yellow.
'These didn't include the tiny rice sized stones that were taken out using specialist suction equipment and these numbered over 100.'
Dr Wei said that bean-based products, and particularly the tofu sold locally in Dongyang, eastern China, often have a high level of calcium and this can easily lead to kidney stones through excessive consumption.
A lack of water intake will cause the calcium to quickly build up inside the body.
Mr He first experienced pain 20 years ago and was treated for more than 10 kidney stones with lithotripsy, a technique that uses shockwaves to break up the stones into small pieces, which are then passed out in urine.
But in the past two years the discomfort increased and in the last two months physical activity became almost unbearable.
His family have said that they will make sure that he will not continue eating tofu in the same volumes as previously.
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