Gout Pal Interactive

Post edited 12:51 pm – October 23, 2009 by zip2play

From trev: I just stress that many other studies keep noting these trends and risk factors but haven't yet come to a consensus on a solid link.

The evidence for the hyperuricemia-CVD link is there and it is solid evidence limited ONLY by the ability of schools and clinincs to fund the research and I could post page after page after of data supporting the strong connection but I am reminded of the pretty sollid evidence that existed iin the 50's that ciigarettes were deadly…we called them COFFIN NAILS as far back as my memory goes. But decade after decade passed during which the cigarette producers (aka cancer, heart disease, COPD, emphysema producers) kept saying “Yes but there's not enough evidence linking smoking with these disease. THere's no CONSENSUS.” And of course the oil companies claim no scientific CONSENSUS on global warming until the only glacier will be available as pictures in old Nation Geographic magazines.

I am not impressed by statements like “Yah, but that's only for women” or “Yah but that's only for blacks” or “Yah, but that's only for the elderly.” In my book that is obfuscation. Neither am I very impressed by advantages of uric acid that are demonstrable only in vitro (in a test tube or a petri dish.) But I am least impressed by claims that uric acid is somehow “an antioxidant” along with every other peddleable expensive nutritional supplement.

Remember, there is a financial penalty to be paid if hyperuricemia is llinked to diseases other than gout, especially heart disease and brain damage. And that is because the FIRST dietary promulagation, once the clear link is actually ADMITTED will be  to eat far less meat and fish. The screams from the meat and fish producers will make Phillip Morrris' howling of the last 30 years sound like a cat's purr by comparison.

trev, I'm glad you started a new page on this. I was feeling guilty for cluttering up the other thread. Now we have a clear place to present the evidence on the proposition/debate: Resolved: “Hyperuricemia is a killer independent of gout. Yea or Nay”…or it's corollary: “Average levels of uric acid are beneficial to humans…Yea o Nay”

My position is prettyy stongly AYE, hypreuricemia is causative in heart disease and NAY, it is a poison and has no meaningfully useful function for humans. I think the evidence supports both these positions.

Ancillary,

Yes, I understand being stuck with that red color because sometimes this board has a mind of its own on formatting…once it gets a font or a color in its head there no doing anything about it. I've given up trying to battle it except for that occasssionally teeny font that occasionallly pops up on cut and pastes that is impossible to read without a strong magniffying gllass. Sometimes I just give up trying to do the paste because nobody will be ablle to read it.

{{wink}} I guess you are leaving it to me to do that dogwork in digging out those two Italian studies…I was hoping to pass the baton on that one.

I'm missing these debates, but I've just got to get that GoutPal.com site moved this weekend – then I'll be back to more frequent commenting (after another 3 weeks “bedding in”)

So a quick comment on this one. And apologies if it has already been said, cos I've got some catching up to do.

The important issue here is risk.

Everything I have read points to a strong statistical link between uric acid and cardio-vascular problems, but nobody has come up with an explanation of that link.

What that means to me in practical terms is that anyone with raised uric acid level should arrange for cardio-vascular tests. That way, if your higher risk turns into an actual problem, it gets nipped in the bud.

On the 'uric acid good for humans' front, the only sensible theory I have seen is that it is linked with the human penchant for walking upright. It is assumed by many that the presence of uric acid raises blood pressure, allowing blood to reach the brain better. For myself, I'd be quite happy to live life on all fours (occasioanl all-fives?) and do without the uric acid.

If I've missed something important on this, or any other topic, please can someone Private Message me with a link.

Post edited 12:45 pm – October 24, 2009 by zip2play

Here's my vision on the CVD-hyperuricemia connection:

Just like deposition into ligaments , joints and kidneys, urate can crystallize onto and INTO an artery wall. THe body perceives the antigen and attacks with phagocytosis…the artery tries to protect itself from this inflammatory battle and end the attack by covering over the whole magilla it with a waxy fat hiigh in LDL choleserol. Autopsy has shown arterial plaques to be composed of fats, cholesterol, pus and urate.

I saw a foot autopsy picture and bejesus it looked like the tophus in the toe was covered in the same whitish-yellowish layer of what looked  very similar to coronary arterial plaque.

So the protective device in the toe becomes the killer in a coronary artery…or ANY artery. When one of these infected plaques break in the foot we get a gout attack, when it breaks in an important artery we risk a lung or kidney embolism, an attack of phlebitis, a heart attack, or an occusive stroke.

Why would one expect uric acid to cause an inflammatory process in ONE part of the body and PREVENT an inflammmatory response in another? The immune system HATES uric acid because it is a poison and it hates it WHEREVER it finds it and the reaction/overraction of the immune system causes gout and abets heart disease.