The Cause of Gout Symptoms

Newspaper health columnist Dr. Paul Donohue, writer of Ask Dr. Donohue has recently written about gout. His information is fairly accurate, but I would make two comments.

A quote:

Now that we have such effective gout medicines, diet takes a back seat in treatment. It cannot be totally ignored, but its importance has diminished from the days when there were no effective drugs. Gout patients should limit their intake of red meat and seafood. Doctors used to give patients a list of purine foods to avoid. The body turns purines into uric acid. On the list were vegetables like peas, beans, lentils, spinach and cauliflower, because they have a high purine content. Evidence shows, however, that these foods do not raise blood uric acid levels, so they can be eaten. Low-fat dairy products act to prevent gout attacks, and your husband should incorporate lots of these foods into his diet. Alcohol can precipitate an attack, and beer is the alcoholic beverage most notorious for doing so.

First, seafood in general is not a problem, it is specifically shellfish. Tuna, for instance, isn’t going to have much of an impact at all.

Second, I would advise Gout sufferers to consider a sleep test for Apnea, (as I always do).

Read more:

GOUT COMES FROM URIC ACID CRYSTALS IN JOINTS [sun-hearald.com]

This entry was posted on Tuesday, December 20th, 2005 at 11:09 am and is filed under General Gout, Gout Diet. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.