Gout Diet

A balanced and nutritional diet in gout, along with proper medication and regular exercises, can cause extreme relief to gouty arthritis attacks. A carbohydrate rich gout diet with lots of vegetables and fruit intake can keep gout disease at bay.

Acute gout syndrome is marked with excessive uric acid metabolism in the blood and joint tissues, causing the uric acid to accumulate in and around the muscle joints and within the joint fluids. Such needle like uric acid crystals causes severe red inflammation, tender soreness and unbearable painful attacks in the joints and body tissues. Such joint inflammatory attacks can be experienced in more than one body tissue, even leading to chronic arthritis and permanent disability in certain cases. If not diagnosed properly, and with lack of correct treatment, gout disease can lead to serious other medical syndromes in the body. Apart from regular medication, a proper and controlled diet in gout is also essential in important gout treatment, and improved relief.

A diet that is rich in carbohydrates, and significantly low on high proteins and high purines can essentially help in preventing and eliminating the formation of excessive uric acid in the body. Purine is a chemical present in the body as well as consumed with various foods that causes uric acid formation in the blood. While a low purine diet in gout may not essentially dis-balance the uric acid formation in the body, but an increased consumption of high purine foods can lead to increased uric acid metabolism causing acute gouty arthritis syndrome. As such, it is essential to avoid high-purine containing food, while maintaining a moderate low-purine diet. The foods that are high in purine content are organ meat, beer, yeast, sardine, meat extract, scallop, mackerel, herring, game meats and anchovies, and should be absolutely avoided while suffering from gout. However, a moderate consumption of low-purine food like low fiber cereals, white flour breads, peanut butter, nuts, fruit juice, low-purine vegetables, low fat cheese, gelatin, soft drink, tea and coffee can be included in the diet without any restriction.

It is also essential that the gout sufferers maintain a low-fat, low-protein diet that also prevents and controls the metabolism of excess uric acid in the body. Typical gout syndrome is also caused due to improper elimination of uric acid from the body. This also causes the excessive uric acid to accumulate around the tissues and joints, leading to acute painful attacks and inflammation. Thus, it is necessary for the kidney to function properly and flush away the unwanted fluids and chemicals from the body. As such, it is essentially significant to incorporate plenty of fluids and other necessary food items in your gout diet to prevent kidney malfunction.

A proper diet essentially incorporates the following food habit and nutritional controls:

• Avoid high-purine food items from your diet like asparagus, crab, liver, kidney, sardines, meat gravies and all the more. However, a balanced diet of peas, beans, cereals, bread, creamy soup and other low-purine vegetables can be consumed with no restriction.
• Harp on low-protein gout diet, and reduce the amount of meat consumption. Meat is very high in protein and is rich in components that increases uric acid metabolism.
• A low-fat diet that essentially eliminates high-fat dairy products like milk, cheese, butter, egg yolk, etc. can also control the formation of uric acid in the body.
• Drinking black cherry juice can prevent the gout attacks and shorten the duration of such painful botheration. However, this is not the artificial cherry juice containing lower percentage of cherry component and artificial flavors. The more authentic and healthy ones are available in the medical stores, and also into tablet format.
• Include a lot of carbohydrate rich food components in the gout diet, and plenty of low-purine vegetables, raw fruits, seeds, cereals and grains, nuts, strawberry and cherry.
• Foods rich in bromelain and Vitamin C should also be included in the diet.
• Drink plenty of water and fluids to keep your kidneys functional in flushing out the excess uric acid from the body.
• Eliminate any sort of alcohol beverages from the diet.
Maintain a proper and nutritional gout diet and keep acute gout arthritis at bay.

Uric Acid Gout

It is easy to detect symptoms of high uric acid by those people who are suffering from uric acid gout and they are not only aware of the symptoms but also about the causes. In this edition we will deal with some of the symptoms, causes and treatment of uric acid gout.

Symptoms of uric acid gout

As far as the symptoms of gout are concerned, you will often notice inflammation, redness and extreme pain in the joints. Although, the big toe is affected for most of the times, but gout can invade any joint of the body such as wrist, fingers, elbow and knee. Those who have suffered from uric acid gout are familiar with the fact that this disease is very painful and becomes a major obstacle in professional or social life, because of inflammation and tremendous pain. In fact, you may not be able to sleep at night due to such pain.

Causes of high uric acid

The basic causes of high uric acid are the failure of the kidney to wash out the uric acid from your body system but have you ever wondered the origin of this acid that enters the body. Actually, this acid is produced inside the body as a derivative of the normal system that provides energy and protein to you for survival.
However, the function of the kidney comprises of flushing out the excess uric acid from the body so that the level of uric acid remain normal in blood. However, if the production of uric acid becomes more than the ability of the kidneys to flush them out, then the uric acid level in blood will increase resulting in uric acid gout. In other words, the uric acid gets deposited at several areas of the joint and the tissues surrounding the same in the form of crystals and you will soon experience the symptoms of gout.

Consequences of high levels of uric acid

Broadly speaking, subsequent attacks of uric acid gout can lead to injured or dented joints due to deposition of uric acid in the joints and the tissues surrounding the same and the shape of the crystals resemble a needle. In addition to this, increased levels of uric acid in blood may also lead the uric acid to crystallize and form stones in the kidney that acts as an becomes a hindrance from the kidneys to the urinary bladder. It is necessary to take a serious note of these symptoms because if you have already suffered from uric acid gout, the attacks can recur if you are not able to control the level of uric acid in blood.

Treatment for the symptoms of uric acid gout

A majority of people who visit the doctor are advised to take medicines for controlling the inflammation and pain that occurs in uric acid gout and some of these medicines include corcitcosteroids, colchicines and NSAID’s but one of the most common and effective drug that is used for managing uric acid level in blood is allopurinol. Although, these medicines are known to act well over uric acid gout, they may also lead to various side-effects such as abdominal cramps, nausea, bleeding, ulcer, vomiting and diarrhea. Moreover, these drugs are also expensive if you have to take them for a longer period of time. If you take these medicines into account, they will do nothing to reduce your weight and if there is a family history or even if the disease is caused by wrong diets and unhealthy lifestyle. This is reason perhaps that lots of patients these days are turning towards natural treatments rather than drug treatments.

NATURAL medications for uric acid gout

There are thousands of people who are suffering from this disease who are now relying on natural remedies such as fruits, herbs and natural food supplements. Accordingly, cherries are recommended for patients of uric acid gout because it is known to reduce inflammation and contains anti oxidant properties. It is also necessary to drink more than two liters of water daily as it facilitates the function of the kidneys and helps to flush out the excess uric acid from the body. In addition to this, the patients can also consume fruit juices and stick to a diet that is low in purines.