A Natural Route To Pacify Gout

Can you imagine waking up one day and your big toe feels like it's been set on fire, burning with excruciating, needle-like pain? So painful that you can barely walk-to the point that you may have to miss work and stay in bed all day.  If you've ever had a gout attack, you'll know that words can't do the severity of this pain any justice.

Gout is a disorder resulting from a disfunction of uric acid metabolism. Somewhere between three and five million Americans suffer from gout. Generally thought of as a genetic disorder, people with gout have a decreased efficiency of excreting uric acid from the blood.  The result is a high level of serum uric acid, which causes the uric acid, or urate crystals, to precipitate out into a joint.

The body will attack the urate crystals, and in doing so also attacks the joint, causing an autoimmune response. This causes the joint to become severely inflamed, red, hot, and swollen. About 50 percent of gout attacks occur at the site of the base of the big toe, but can occur in any joint in the body, including the spine. Many people have gout related attacks in other joints, but this almost always goes undiagnosed. Another common area for gout attacks is the ankle.

High uric acid levels, and faulty uric acid metabolism, can also affect the tendons and kidneys-producing kidney stones. About five to ten percent of people with kidney stones have uric acid stones.

Uric acid is a normal by-product of purine metabolism, and is actually an anti-oxidant at lower levels helping to protect our blood vessels from damage, but becomes problematic at higher levels. Purines are a vital part of nucleic acids in DNA and RNA. Thirty percent of our purine intake comes from our food intake, and seventy percent comes from our normal cellular processes.

The normal range for uric acid in the medical model depends on the laboratory and on the gender-generally somewhere between 2.8 and 7.5mg per dl. I believe that the ideal range should be somewhere between 3.3 - 5.7mg per dl.

Dietary modification and nutritional supplementation are the most important and effective steps that you can take in keeping uric acid levels low, and helping with uric acid secretion-therefore preventing gout attacks.

A specific type of sugar intake is directly linked to uric acid build up. Specifically, uric acid is a by-product of fructose metabolism. Fructose causes cells to use up and burn their ATP rapidly, increasing cell death. The higher the cellular death, the higher the production of uric acid.

Limiting fructose intake is essential to controlling gout attacks. A medium sized kiwi has about 3 grams of fructose, while a medium sized pear has about 12 grams of fructose. Ideally, gout sufferers should limit their fructose intake to 15 grams per day. There are plenty of fructose charts online that go over the grams of fructose in fruits and other foods. Stay far away from high fructose corn syrup, which is in many processed foods, sodas, and fruit juices.

Alcohol should be avoided, as it breaks down into lactic acid. Lactic acid competes with uric acid in the kidneys to be excreted. The lactic acid wins out, leaving the uric acid in the body. It also degrades ATP into a by-product that increases uric acid levels. Beer is the worst form of alcohol a gout sufferer can consume, as the yeast in beer contributes to uric acid production.

Since dietary purines do have some impact on uric acid levels, here is a list of foods that gout sufferers should avoid:

• Certain seafood: herring, anchovies, and tuna

• Alcohol, especially beer

• Certain Meats: turkey

• Certain Veggies: asparagus and mushrooms

• Fructose: 15 mg max per day

• Soy milk

So what are the best foods for gout sufferers?

• Tart cherries (you have to limit the amount based on the fructose in the cherries): to avoid the sugar/fructose consumption of the fruit, supplementing with a tart cherry extract is best.

• High potassium rich foods: Swiss chard, avocado, celery, and Brussels sprouts

• Low fructose containing foods

• Strawberries and blueberries (1/2 cup max per day)

Vitamins, herbs and minerals that are good for gout sufferers (if muscle tests positive for):

• Zinc

• Probiotics: since thirty percent of uric acid excretion is affected by the gut, which is aided by probiotics

• Devils claw: A natural anti-inflammatory

• Quercetin: Anti-oxidant maintains key liver enzymes that are vital for uric acid metabolism

• Vitamin C

• Cinnamon

• Tulsi, also known as holy basil

• Alfalfa

• Ashwaganda

There are numerous and amazing benefits to dietary modifications and nutritional supplementation that can make gout a thing of the past.
Dr. Louis Granirer
NYC Chiropractor
Holistic Chiropractic Center