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Why do gout sufferers need to know about chocolate?
Because my news page just told me that chocolate can lower blood pressure, and for nearly half of all gout patients that is good news.

I told you about high blood pressure (hypertension) and gout sufferers in my second newsletter ^(*). I am one of the 49% of gout sufferers who also have high blood pressure.

Journal of the American Medical Association has recently reported about research into Effects of Low Habitual Cocoa Intake on Blood Pressure. They found that eating 6.3g of dark chocolate for 18 weeks:
reduced average blood pressure
did not increase body weight, fatty acids or glucose.
reduced the number of participants with hypertension from 86 to 68 in every hundred

Blood pressure of participants who ate white chocolate did not change.

The authors conclude that:

small amounts of polyphenol-rich dark chocolate as part of a usual diet efficiently reduced BP (blood pressure)

So that 100g bar of 70% choccy that I just ate should have done me some good?

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^(*)If you have not read about hypertension in gout sufferers, you should subscribe to my newsletter. You will get a link to the back issues when you do. Look for the second issue.

Tags: gout-sufferers, _hypertension

Can Hypertension Drugs Lower Uric Acid Levels?

There are many types of hypertension drugs. The most commonly prescribed, diuretics, can often raise uric acid levels, and are often seen as a gout trigger.

Another class of hypertension drugs are ARBs. One of this class, losartan, has been reported as lowering uric acid levels, but other drugs in this class, e.g. candesartan, have no lowering effect.

A recent study by Takashi Iwanaga and others has investigated the effects of ARB drugs on uric acid levels. Concentration-Dependent Mode of Interaction of Angiotensin II Receptor Blockers with Uric Acid Transporter Formula is a study of the effects of different concentrations of ARB drugs on uric acid.

This is a very technical report, the outcome of which is demonstration that some ARBs lower uric acid levels, whilst others only do so at certain concentrations. The report concludes that this behavior can be predicted from the chemical structure and holds out hope that ARB drug development will avoid preparations that could increase uric acid.

Clearly, there is a long way to go before drugs are developed specifically for sufferers of both gout and hypertension. But this is a start.

Tags: _hypertension