How are Alcohol and Gout Related
Hot on the heels of my reader’s message that led to My gout diet Plan, came a message about alcohol and gout. I’ve been sitting on the fence about this for too long. Time to make a stand for alcohol. Or at least seek better information from people who know better - maybe you!
One of my first GoutPal.com pages was about the effects of alcohol. I’m not saying I know everything about gout now, but I knew a lot less then. Not that there is anything wrong with what I said. The main problem for me was including it in my Gout Causes section. At the time, I’d been led to believe that alcohol causes gout. I doubted it then, and I doubt it more now.
I looked at a lot of research, studies and reports about alcohol and gout. I wrote that I would summarize these. But I remained confused. I put things on the back burner until I got this message:
of ALL major types of alcohol which can i consume with the LEAST adverse affects. (i.e. vodka, gin, rum, all whiskeys, wines, beers, liquors, assorted cocktails, shots, etc. etc. etc. can’t i have ANYTHING at all? I know high sulfite content is BAD. SOOOO many conflicting answers, studies show beer the worst then liquor then wine..WHAT!!! wine has the HIGHEST sulfite content of ALL three? I’m totally confused here!!!!white wine okay, white wine bad, etc. etc.
Now I haven’t had time to look at sulfite and gout - that’s for another time. I have had a little think about alcohol. I know how alcohol affects me. I know how alcohol affects my gout. I think it’s time for a bit of controversy.
My Alcohol and Gout Theory
Alcohol has very little to do with gout. It’s easy to fall into the trap of getting hung up on it. Most doctors tell you alcohol is bad for you, and you end up feeling guilty. Now I’m not advocating alcohol abuse, but I can definitely see from my experience that alcohol has some positive effects.
I find it lifts my mood - important to me when I’m feeling a bit down with the pain of a gout attack.
I find it helps gout attacks to resolve quicker. I drink mainly beer, and I find that after a few pints the swelling goes down and the pain gets less.
Now these are both short term benefits. The downsides of alcohol probably come later, but unless you’re drinking excessively, they are beatable.
I do not recommend neat spirit. Spirit with a still mixer is, I think, better than fizzy mixers. Wine and beer should be OK. There’s very little more than alcohol and water in most drinks, so it’s not worth getting hung up over. In theory, red wine has more health giving trace elements than other drinks, so it should be preferred, but I don’t think it’s critical.
The first downside is dehydration. There’s only one answer to this - drink water. You may have seen my page on water and gout. Keeping hydrated is very important for managing gout. If you get into the water habit, you should never suffer from alcohol-induced dehydration. Make sure you drink water after alcohol, and drink more if you wake through the night.
The second downside is weight gain. You have to manage this over a week, not a night. If you’re overweight, aim to balance your diet to loose one or two pounds a week. No more. If you’re not overweight, try to maintain a fairly even weight. Managing your weight includes looking at calorie intake, exercise and metabolism. My soon-to-be-launched gout diet Plan will cover this in more detail.
There is a risk that alcohol can affect kidney function. Regular water drinking should more than compensate for this. I recommend kidney function tests as a normal part of health checks. Your health care provider should advise the interval.
All in all, I’d say stop reading the studies, and get drinking! Do it sensibly, and if anyone says alcohol causes gout, please ask them for me - How?
Your Thoughts On Alcohol And Gout
I’ve come to the conclusion that a lot of “scientific evidence” about alcohol and gout is worthless. Alcohol is to be enjoyed as part of a healthy social life, not studied in a lab. I’m much more interested in the practical aspects of living with gout. Deciliters of blood, and micrograms of alcohol, don’t interest me.
I’m happy to share my own thoughts on alcohol and gout, but I don’t wish to mislead anyone. Please share your experiences here so readers can see a balanced view. All you have to do is add a comment below. You can also write to me privately via my contact form.
Tags: alcohol-and-gout, gout-and-alcohol
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[...] Gout and Alcohol By GoutPal I wrote my personal opinion on gout and alcohol a few months ago. I’ve enjoyed reasonable, and occasionally excessive, amounts of wine and beer since, and my opinion is unchanged. However, I must point out that this is my personal experience, and will not apply to all gout sufferers. [...]
I have suffered from gout since I was 35 (now 45) and I too was very confused about alcohol consumption.
Just last month I had one of the worst attacks I have had in years. I was almost confined to bed for 7 days. I could barely make it to the bathroom (15ft away) to get rid of the 100,000 gals of water I was drinking with lemon juice and cherries, baking sodas bananas….anything I could possibly find on the internet that would reduce my acid levels.
After I got to the point where I could walk, but still with a medium level of pain a friend of mine asked me to go out drinking. I reluctantly agreed, but despite my reservations, I had about 5 Johnny Walker scotch’s on the rocks, figuring what the hell life must go on.
I can tell you the next morning I could have run a marathon!
About three days passed and I could feel the pain coming back. Went out again, had about three scotches, and low and behold, next morning could have run another marathon.
I rarely drink, except socially, and I like many sufferers have been told for years that alcohol is BAD BAD BAD for gout sufferers, but I just have never believed it as this was not the first time this alcohol/pain relief has occurred.
There is so much conflicting information, I too agree that everyone must experiment for themselves and see what works or doesn’t work. I won’t strat drinking every time I have an attack, but I can tell you that if it gets unbearable again, I am breaking out the scotch! And if it works again, I will surely re-post.
BTW, Beer does seem to trigger attacks for me. I believe it is from the hops and barley and yeast which are very high in purines. Or at least that is what I read. it seems logical that fermented spirits would be higher in purines than distilled ones, but, I am not a scientist.
Hope this helps at least one person, and thanks for the continuing info I often refer too.
I often feel that we are looking for scapegoats for our gout pain, and alcohol is constantly flagged as a massive gout problem by the medical profession. Personally, I get gout if I drink, and I get gout on those very rare occasions when I don’t drink.
I think you know my conclusion
Sorry to beat the “iron drum” again. Alcohol is one of the best foods you can eat to get the maximum amount of iron out of your food in as short amount of time as possible. Iron that normally wouldn’t be absorbed across the intestinal lining will when alcohol is present. The enzyme responsible for converting purines into uric acid is xanthine oxidase (XO). XO is able to work better and faster when iron is available in the proteins that the body uses to store iron (free iron is toxic to cells). If you eat a meal with 1000 purines in it, it may all get turned to uric acid but the longer it takes, the better. With a good amount of alcohol, it will take considerable less time. The result is your uric acid level spikes which makes the crystal formation more likely. However, if you do decide to drink, the smart move might be to drink on an empty stomach.
Scratch the last bit about drinking on an empty stomach. Bad idea.
I used to binge drink and binge eat. I recently had what I thought was my first real gout attack. I did the whole purine free thing, the meds and the gout seemed to be going away. I had 2 pints and the next day I was back to square one, meds and all. A week later I could not bear the pain anymore so I caved in and had 2 fingers of scotch before dinner followed by 2 pints of water and had my first painfree night in a week. I do not know why but beer seems more of a trigger for me and if a few shots of the hard stuff when wanted help why not. Life goes on. Remember to hydrate.
i myself,i got watch dark/heavy beers,dark rum.had some brewers yeast that i took & got a attack on my rt.knee.coors,bud lite,etc.seems to be ok