Study Finds Big Thunder Mountain Railroad Can Help You Pass a Kidney Stone

You read that right — according to a study reported on by Live Science, Disney’s Big Thunder Mountain Railroad attraction can help people pass kidney stones… just don’t ask how they know.

OK, actually the research was published in the Journal of the American Osteopathic Association and was inspired by anecdotes told to the team by patients that had passed their stones after riding Big Thunder in Walt Disney World. So the scientists headed down to Florida with a 3D model of a kidney in a backpack — presumably leading to the oddest security check ever — to test the theory.

big-thunder-mountain-railroad-00

From Live Science:

In the experiment, the researchers placed three real kidney stones and some urine in the model kidney. The kidney stones were different sizes: small (4.5 cubic millimeters), medium (13.5 cubic mm) and large (64.6 cubic mm).

The researchers took the model kidney on the Big Thunder Mountain Railroad roller coaster 20 times. They experimented with the position of the different sizes of kidney stones in different parts of their kidney model. On one ride, for example, the largest stone was placed in the upper part of the kidney; on another, the large stone was placed in the middle of the kidney. Ultimately, each stone was placed in each location of the kidney for at least one ride.

Of course, scientists like to have control over their experiment and there was one problem: seat assignment. They left that up to chance but did find that sitting in the back resulted in stones passing 64% of the time compared to only 17% of the time in front.

So now you know… just in case.