What Foods To Avoid With Gout And Why

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• Get Our Diet Newsletter
• Nuts And Gout
• Ketogenic Diets For Mental Health
• How Do Purines Play A Role In Gout?

While there may not be foods that cause gout on their own, certain diets increase the likelihood of initial gout onset, as well as recurring episodes. If you have gout attacks, follow the standard diet advice, below. Doing that as part of a nutritious eating pattern supports overall health, too. Legumes are a great protein alternative if you are cutting back on your red meat consumption due to gout. When reducing one food group it is vital to make sure you are still getting the proper nutrients you need by adding in another food group.

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If treated right away, gout is nothing to be too worried about. Untreated, however, it can lead to advanced gout and tophi, which are deposits of sodium urate monohydrate crystals around a joint that causes a swollen growth under the skin. There's also some evidence that drinking four to six cups of coffee a day lowers gout risk in men. Studies have shown that it may be a better choice than meat for people with gout. Dairy�Dairy has been used to combat gout for 400 years, according to a review of studies.

An effective gout diet is largely vegetarian, but that means you’ll need other sources of protein. While nuts, and some vegetables, can supply some proteins, eggs are another good option for healthy protein without the high purine counts. Cashews are a great source of plant-based protein and healthy fat, and they are very low in purine levels—even compared to other nuts. That means cashews are a great snack choice for people with gout. Most vegetables are low in purine, and are great options for anyone at risk of gout or a gout attack.

Nuts And Gout

In a subset of people who had uric acid levels at or above 7 mg/dL at the start of the study, uric acid levels decreased by 1.3 mg/dL. “That starts to approach the effect we see with medications for lowering uric acid, such as allopurinol, which lowers uric acid by 2 to 3 mg/dL,” Juraschek says. Even so, Vlad says some people who develop gout are at a healthy weight. Other factors, such as heredity, use of certain medications and the presence of other diseases, such as kidney disease or congestive heart failure, affect gout risk, too. Gout is so painful that its sufferers say you can’t really grasp how bad it is unless you’ve experienced it.

Drink plenty of liquids to help flush uric acid from your body. Avoid high-protein diets, which can cause you to produce too much uric acid . This condition is chronic in nature with severe, brutal acute attacks. Gout has long been associated with diet, particularly eating too much meat, seafood and alcohol. Because of this, treatment for gout used to involve severe dietary restrictions, which made the gout diet hard to stick with. Now that newer medications are available to treat gout, the need for a strict gout diet has been reduced, although following the guidelines is highly recommended.

What Should I Eat If I Have Gout?

The crystallization of uric acid, often related to relatively high levels in the blood, is the underlying cause of gout. This can occur because of diet, genetic predisposition, or underexcretion of urate, the salts of uric acid. Underexcretion of uric acid by the kidney is the primary cause of hyperuricemia in about 90% of cases, while overproduction is the cause in less than 10%. About 10% of people with hyperuricemia develop gout at some point in their lifetimes. The risk, however, varies depending on the degree of hyperuricemia. When levels are between 415 and 530 μmol/l (7 and 8.9 mg/dl), the risk is 0.5% per year, while in those with a level greater than 535 μmol/l (9 mg/dL), the risk is 4.5% per year.

Although these foods can help make a difference in lowering your uric acid levels, you need to check your expectations. Gout can be caused by a combination of factors—not just a poorly balanced diet. But there are certain foods you should eat—and others you should avoid such as those high in purines—to help prevent both gout in general and gout attacks. If you need your meat fix, you can eat chicken, beef, and pork in reasonable amounts — about 4-6 ounces per serving. Try and limit this meat and poultry intake to just a few times a week, though. And if you want fish, try canned fish, such as tuna or salmon, which contain lower levels of purine.

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Other foods loaded with high-fructose corn syrup can also bring on gout pain. Eating cherries or cherry extract may help you control gout flares. A large study of more than 600 people with recurring gout looked at how cherries influence gout frequency. People who reported eating cherries or cherry extract were significantly less likely to experience gout over the following two days. The study found that one to two servings of cherries per day seemed to confer the maximum benefit. Studies suggest that purines found in meats and seafoods may provoke gout episodes in some people.

What foods cause gout to flare up?

Foods and drinks that often trigger gout attacks include organ meats, game meats, some types of fish, fruit juice, sugary sodas and alcohol. On the other hand, fruits, vegetables, whole grains, soy products and low-fat dairy products may help prevent gout attacks by lowering uric acid levels.

The metatarsal-phalangeal joint at the base of the big toe is affected most often, accounting for half of cases. Other joints, such as the heels, knees, wrists, and fingers, may also be affected. Joint pain usually begins during the night and peaks within 24 hours of onset.

Organ Meats Are Extremely High In Purines And Should Also Be Avoided

An evolutionary loss of urate oxidase , which breaks down uric acid, in humans and higher primates has made this condition common. Gout is a special type of arthritis in which certain joints fill up with microscopic shards of uric acid, becoming red, swollen, and exquisitely sensitive to the touch. Most people with gout have too much uric acid in their blood—higher than 6 mg/dl in women and 7 mg/dl in men (levels can reach 12 mg/dl or more in some cases). Uric acid crystals can also cause kidney stones and kidney damage. More than 20% of Americans now have abnormally high uric acid levels.