Hi Sally
It would be interesting to see why the NEJM came to those conclusions. Michael Murray, one of our Nutrition Gurus, says
"A low-purine diet has long been the mainstay of dietary therapy for gout. However, with the advent of potent drugs that lower uric acid levels, many physicians choose to simply write out a prescription rather than educate the patient how to control the gout by dietary measures. Foods high in purines should be entirely omitted. These include: organ meats, meats, shellfish, yeast (brewer's and baker's), herring, sardines, mackerel, and anchovies. Foods with moderate levels of protein should be curtailed as well. These include dried legumes, spinach, asparagus, fish, poultry and mushrooms."
I surmise from the above comments that the info in the NEJM was gleaned from the pharmaceutical industry keen to promote their products rather than follow the time-honoured proven methods of dealing with the problem.
Murray also points out that weight reduction in those who are overweight significantly reduces serum uric acid levels, and that a high-fibre, low-fat diet will help do this and in addition it will reduce cholesterol and triglyceride levels. Liberal fluid intake "will promote the excretion of uric acid reducing the risk of kidney stones."
He explains among many other things that
"Alcohol increases uric acid production by accelerating purine breakdown. It also reduces uric acid excretion by increasing lactate reduction, which impairs kidney function. The net effect is a significant increase in uric acid levels. This explains why alcohol consumption is often a trigger in acute attacks of gout. Elimination of alcohol is all that is needed to reduce uric acid levels and prevent gouty arthritis in many individuals."
Murray's advice is based on biochemistry and function. Nothing to do with old wives tales! But they were sometimes right anyway.
I shall pm you Sally.
Thank you Carline I have replied 🙂 The studies I have looked at are based on knowledge of the bodies metabolism plus actually looking at the effect of various restrictions on the frequency of attacks in patients.
Since I DON"T eat many purine rich foods and don't drink a lot of alcohol I don't fit the normal picture of a gout sufferer so I am not convinced my diet is a major factor. I am sure my weight is an issue tho so I will be looking at what I can do to get to grips with that....but that has been a problem since my thyroid op.
However I maybe be overweight and euthyroid but at nearly 62 I am NOT hypertensive, diabetic or any of the other issues commonly associated with increasing maturity so I have a lot to be thankful for 🙂
I personally found that the best way to combat a <a class="go2wpf-bbcode" rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="gout">gout attack is taking ample rest and elevating your limb to avoid accidental damages of the affected joints. Another way to apply the self-care method is keeping the affected joint cool and avoiding it from being warm. The best way to do this is to remove all the clothing around the affected region and applying a cold, ice pack on it. I hope that helped!
hi, i see this is kind of old but i thought i would add my thoughts in case it might help some one in the future..
I suffered with gout at 24. I kept having bouts of it really bad! The GP googled gout (well searched on their intranet system) and printed off a list of foods high in purines to avoid and tried to give me allopurinal for life. That didn't seem right. I started to do some research and long story short I found the following helped
1) Drink plenty, plenty of water and green vege juice (maybe not spinach or beet greens)
2) find particular foods that set it off for sure, don't just avoid all purine foods. Beans do it for me, black beans in particular for some reason. (I eat plenty of protein and purine foods)
3) Use Enzymes on an empty stomach. I used Serrapeptase. I had some one day It was a friday, the next day I took more, I was taking 5 caps at a time. I could hardly walk and was going out to a party Saturday night, we were going to have to get a taxi and i certainly wasn't drinking as the pain was so bad. That afternoon i felt my foot fizzing. I felt the pain leave and later that night i was running up and down the street as we walked to the party. It was amazing and one of the reasons i started to study natural therapy.
I think of gout as a digestive /liver/kidney disorder. Get these things working properly and you need never worry about gout.
I was surprised to see this thread pop up again....and I realised I never posted the conclusion. My urate levels were normal, so whatever it was I had it was NOT gout. I have since then been focusing on energy work and grounding....qigong in the garden is great when I can do it!
To this day I have NO idea what was wrong or what caused it. !! I am still not convinced by the purine free diet for gout....it won;t hurt - but as I said only a proportion of purine comes from the diet.....
Getting metaphysical its all about balance - which is why energy work and grounding suited me as a way to prevent whatever it was happening again. Even though in the end I did NOT have gout....something was out of balance. Keeping my energies balanced works for me.
Glad to hear you never had it again. The urate levels are not an accurate measurement for gout as often, by the time the crystals form, blood levels are down.
Glad you found a way to re balance. I am just re discovering grounding and I love it.
I much prefer the idea of re balancing the body rather than going after symptoms and named diseases/conditions.
I wonder if it was mild cellulitis after all?
I wonder if it was mild cellulitis after all?
No such thing IMO....there were no markers for infection......and I never felt it WAS infected.....if you know what I mean.........