A healthy diet of fruits, vegetables, nuts and whole grains can help prevent kidney stones, according to a new study.

Because kidney stones are linked to higher rates of hypertension, diabetes, increased body weight and other risk factors for heart disease, the findings have considerable health implications a news release from the American Society of Nephrology said.

Dr. Eric Taylor of the Maine Medical Center and a team collected data from three large studies with a total of more than 250,000 people. They were given a score based on how well what they ate conformed to a DASH diet -- short for dietary approaches to stop hypertension -- which is meant to fight high blood pressure.

Overall, there were about 5,600 cases of kidney stones.

Those with the highest DASH scores were 40 to 45 percent less likely to get kidney stones than those with the lowest scores.

The news release did not discuss what percentage in each of those groups would be expected to get kidney stones, though the overall rate in the studies was approximately 2.3 percent.

Because a DASH-style diet may affect the development of hypertension, diabetes, and other chronic diseases associated with kidney stones, the researchers also performed an analysis limited to study participants without hypertension or diabetes. Even among those individuals the DASH diet reduced the risk of kidney stones.

Many of the medications used to treat kidney stones have unpleasant side effects, the release said, and the study indicates that adopting a DASH-style diet may be an effective alternative.