Gout Pal Interactive

Whilst looking for information about uric acid, I came across an interesting piece about Alzheimer’s disease and uric acid.

In the article, Mathilda refers to some recent research about uric acid as a potential cure for Alzheimer’s, or at least a way to hold the progression of the disease.

The research in this article follows on from a piece I did last year explaining how uric acid could reduce nerve damage. The researcher, Professor Firestein, pointed out to me that maintaining an adequate level of uric acid in the body is important.

There are a few more important points about uric acid, Alzheimer’s disease and related medical conditions and treatments.

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Tags: alzheimers, alzheimers disease, _uric acid

This one is to allopurinol takers everywhere.

Why do you put up with such shoddy service?

Every week, I get messages from gout sufferers, and their carers, about problems with allopurinol. Most of these show that absolutely no thought has gone into the treatment.

If you bought a car with only two wheels, would you accept it and drive round in a shower of sparks?
If you called a plumber to fix your leak, would you be happy to pay a weeks wages for him to merely turn the water off?
Would you pay an optician who grabbed the nearest pair of specs and said, “Here, these will do,” without testing your eyes?

Why take allopurinol without checking that it is doing it’s job?
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Tags: allopurinol treatment, _alipurinal, _alipurinol, _allipurinal, _allopurino, _allopurinol, _alopurenol, _alopurinal, _urate lowering therapy, _uric acid

The first of today’s short gout questions is graph uric acid level.

It seems a strange question. Graph uric acid level against what? A particular gout treatment? A particular gout diet? Let me explain uric acid levels in general terms, then you can interpret your data against particular aspects of your own gout treatment or lifestyle.

The most important thing about uric acid level graphs is Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: graph uric acid level, _gout triggers, _uric acid, _uric acid crystals

Yesterday, somebody asked me “What is the protein and uric acid connection?”
I can sum it up in two words.
Very complex.
But you want more than that, don’t you?

The simplest explanation is that certain proteins (purines) get broken down in the human body to uric acid. Most other animals produce other enzymes (uricase) that continue to breakdown uric acid further, so that it is easier to excrete. Humans do not have that enzyme because we want to keep some of the uric acid. It neutralizes free oxygen radicals in our body that would otherwise cause extensive cell damage. That is why normal human lifespan is greater than many animals.

From that, we can see that the protein and uric acid connection is a simple one:
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Tags: protein and uric acid connection, _gout, _gout diet, _purines, _uric acid

Gout and antioxidants are closely related. Uric acid is an antioxidant that we produce to help protect our bodies from free oxygen (free radicals) that can harm our bodies. Though we need this antioxidant for life, too much of this particular good thing can lead to gout.

Gout research tells us that food high in antioxidants can help reduce uric acid. My logic tells me that it makes sense for our bodies to produce less of our own antioxidant, uric acid, when we can absorb what we need from our food. One pillar of my gout diet plan is that food rich in antioxidants will help lower uric acid.

Up to now, I have simply advised you to increase antioxidant rich foods. Many of you want more than this, and so I will shortly be publishing a series of free gout recipes that will help you plan your own gout diet. In my next newsletter, I will also introduce a more detailed gout diet planning service for those who want to be told what to eat. As gout affects everyone differently, I will also show you how you can see for yourself, which foods raise or lower your own uric acid.

Antioxidant measuring is a new part of nutrition. Better measurement techniques and new research studies are adding to our knowledge daily. I focus on a simple list of foods that have been generally accepted as being high in antioxidants.

TABLE 4 The 50 foods with the highest antioxidant contents per serving size¹

Product Antioxidant content mmol/serving Blackberries 5.746 Walnuts 3.721 Strawberries 3.584 Artichokes, prepared 3.559 Cranberries 3.125 Coffee 2.959 Raspberries 2.870 Pecans 2.741 Blueberries 2.680 Cloves, ground 2.637 Grape juice 2.557 Chocolate, baking, unsweetened 2.516 Cranberry juice 2.474 Cherries, sour 2.205 Wine, red 2.199 Power Bar, chocolate flavor2 1.875 Pineapple juice 1.859 Latino beverages, guava nectar 1.858 Juice drinks, 10% juice, blueberry or strawberry flavor, vitamin C�enriched 1.821 Cranapple juice 1.790 Prunes 1.715 Chocolates, dark, sugar-free 1.675 Cabbage, red cooked 1.614 Orange juice 1.510 Apple juice, with added vitamin C 1.462 Latino beverages, mango nectar 1.281 Pineapple 1.276 Oranges 1.261 Bran Flakes, breakfast cereals3 1.244 Plums, black 1.205 Pinto beans, dried 1.137 Canned chili with meat and beans 1.049 Spinach, frozen 1.045 Canned chili with meat, no beans 1.040 Whole Grain Total, breakfast cereal4 1.024 Chocolate, sugar-free 1.001 Kiwi fruit 0.987 Molasses, dark 0.980 Potatoes, red, cooked 0.956 Cheese lasagna, frozen and cooked 0.942 Potatoes, white, cooked 0.918 Sweet potatoes, baked 0.900 Iced tea, brewed, unsweetened 0.881 Potatoes, russet, cooked 0.862 Baked beans, pork and beans in brown sugar sauce 0.852 Condensed tomato soup, one brand 0.826 Broccoli raab, cooked 0.823 Peppers, red, cooked 0.820 Broccoli, cooked 0.780 Latino beverages, tamarind nectar 0.761

¹ The antioxidant content per serving size was calculated as indicated in Table 6. Mean values are provided for products for which different brands are comparable.

² POWERBAR Co, Berkeley, CA.

³ Ralston Foods, Battle Creek, MI.

⁴ General Mills, Inc, Milwaukee, WI.

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Remember, antioxidant content varies widely with many factors including season, method of cooking, and variety. Do not get bogged down in the numbers, just use the list to try and improve what you are eating now.

There are several methods of measuring antioxidant values, and many different studies. These foods are only a selection, and do not cover all high-antioxidant foods. Another good list is the table of best sources of antioxidants in foods.

If you like a high antioxidant food that is not listed here, but you think it might help your gout, then add a comment, or, even better, discuss it in the gout forum.

Tags: gout and antioxidants, _gout diet, _uric acid

Every gout sufferer is concerned about food, but before you start a gout diet, make sure that it is built on sound principles. Gout diets, like any form of gout treatment, need to recognize and improve three distinct phases: stop gout triggers, reduce gout pain and lower uric acid. Let me explain how a good gout diet relates to the three basic phases of gout management.

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Tags: gout diet principles, _gout diet, _gout triggers, _pain relief, _purines, _uric acid

Gout pain relief is the first stage of gout management. The second stage is treatment to reduce uric acid, but this can cause more pain and many people miss this vital treatment because they cannot tolerate the pain. Recent discoveries regarding gout pain have suggested an alternative approach that may well lead to a new, more effective form of gout pain relief.

Many people mistakenly believe that uric acid crystals, commonly described as needle-like, cause pain in the same way that sticking pins in your body will. If you’ve studied my U-D-R-P model of gout pain, you will know that it is actually your immune system reacting to the crystals that causes swelling and pain in a similar way to fighting a virus. And the pain doesn’t only arise when something triggers these uric acid crystals to form.

A few days after your immune system has attacked uric acid crystals, swelling and pain subside as the crystals become hidden by white blood cells. But you need to reduce uric acid levels to get rid of gout, and whether you do this by diet or by drugs like allopurinol, those gout crystals that were hidden will become visible as they dissolve. This is why most doctors subscribe gout pain relief drugs such as colchicine or other anti-inflammatories (NSAIDS) at the same time as allopurinol. But many people simply cannot stomach these anti-inflammatory drugs and medical researchers are always on the look out for new approaches to gout pain relief.

Recent research into the immune system reaction to uric acid crystals has identified a protein called interleukin-1 (IL-1) as part of the problem. This has long been known to be a factor in rheumatoid arthritis, and a recent study, A Pilot Study of IL-1 Inhibition by Anakinra in Acute Gout, has treated gout patients with the rheumatoid arthritis drug, anakinra. Though this pilot study needs to be confirmed with randomized clinical trials, the authors conclude:

” In this pilot study involving 10 patients with gouty arthritis refractory to conventional therapies, anakinra given at 100 mg daily for 3 days rapidly relieved the inflammatory symptoms of gout. “

It’s good to see that deeper understanding of how gout pain is caused by the immune system has led to scientists looking for different types of treatment. It’s even better to see that applying existing drugs in new ways has led to a real possibility of a new, effective form of gout pain relief.

Tags: gout pain relief, _allopurinol, _anti inflammatories, _colchicine, _gout cures, _gout research, _nsaids, _uric acid, _uric acid crystals

I’ve been asked about Uricinex today.
Though, I’ve heard of it, I know very little about it.
My first question is “Uricinex: Does It Work?”

After a quick look at a site promoting this product I decided to search on Google Scholar. Result - nothing! This concerns me. Scholar indexes scientific research and other factual information. I use it all the time when looking for information on gout that I can rely on. It’s results cannot be 100% relied on - just because something is a result of scientific research, doesn’t make it true. However, it is a good source of traceable information, that can usually be independently investigated and verified.

Now, if you search Google Scholar for brand names, you might expect to find no results. Most scientific research looks at generic products or specific medications. The reason why I was hoping to see something is that the site promoting Uricinex claims impressive results from independent clinical trials. I want to see those trials in full - not a marketing department interpretation.

For now, I’ll have to comment on what I see in the sales pitch.

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Tags: uricinex does it work, _gout cures, _uric acid, _uricinex

“Do not use aspirin with gout” has been the cry for decades.
Scientists have said low dose aspirin can help heart disease and stroke, but not treat gout because it raises uric acid.

Many believed that high dosage aspirin could help reduce pain and swelling in gout, but low dosage made it worse. A new study has shown that low dosage aspirin has no effect on uric acid levels, so it should be OK to treat gout. Low-Dose Aspirin Use and Serum Urate Levels: A Population Based Propensity Analysis studied nearly 2000 subjects. It concludes that “Low-dose aspirin use was not associated with increase of serum urate levels”

2008 Update

I’ve changed the link for this report to my recent review. It appears that the jury is still well and truly out on the subject of low-dosage aspirin and uric acid.

If you take low dose aspirin, and you have gout, or if you are at risk of gout, please see a doctor as soon as you can to discuss your best options.

Do you take aspirin, or have you been told to avoid aspirin because of gout? Please share your views and experiences in the GoutPal Forum.

Tags: treat gout, _aspirin, _gout cures, _heart disease, _uric acid

Developing a new gout remedy takes time and money. Lots of money. I’ve just seen an interesting review of Puricase. Follow the money to see if it leads to a successful gout treatment.

Let’s be realistic. A successful gout remedy isn’t just about patient benefits. Drug companies only survive if they make money. A hard hitting review of Savient’s financial prospects, by PharmaTracker, gives an interesting insight into the medical prospects for gout sufferers like you and I.

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Tags: gout remedy, _puricase, _reducing uric acid research, _savient, _uric acid