ReeHart – Blogging from the Heart

Posts Tagged ‘gout’

Being overweight is a common factor in most gout patients. A big reason for the connection between the two is diet. High purine foods are a major contributing factor to gout. Many of these same high purine foods are not healthy and aid in weight gain.

Risky foods such as bacon and hamburgers should not be part of your diet. However, if you wish to continue eating them, it would be advisable to only eat them occasionally. These foods not only have a big purine content, they also are loaded with fats that make it harder to lose extra weight.

Drinking multiple sodas a day increases your risk of gout by 50%. The empty calories also add to your weight problem, further increasing your risk of gout by putting more stress on your kidneys. Not to mention, high sugar content has been linked with increased risk of cancer.

Diet sodas are not a good option if you drink regular soda. Diet pops can have a negative effect on losing weight. These seemingly helpful drinks make you hungrier and some health professionals actually think diet sodas are worse than drinking regular pop. Not to mention the chemicals used in diet drinks have been found in studies to increase your risk of cancer. Just don’t drink pop. Water is a much better alternative.

Drinking coffee can have useful benefits when trying to eliminate future gout symptoms. Even though coffee can dehydrate you, studies show that drinking four cups a day can reduce uric acid levels almost in half. Decaf works also in case caffeine use is a concern.

Big changes in one step is usually not beneficial. Moderation is the key. By taking smaller steps you will be less likely to quit and will be more likely to have healthy longevity results.

By doing just a few things a little at a time, you will help improve kidney function, reduce the stress load on your renal system, which will have the added benefit of reducing your risk of cancer, heart disease, high blood pressure, and stroke. The benefits far outweigh the risks.

Eating a healthy diet will not only help you in losing extra weight, but can help you get rid of gout. Many of the foods we take for granted such as most fruits, can actually help you beat the symptoms and causes of this painful arithritic disease.

Gout is uniquely known in the medical world as one of the most regularly recorded medical disease throughout history. It is frequently related to hereditary abnormality in the ability of a person’s body to excrete uric acid.

No one thinks much about purines in their food, the items that are high in purines are often amongst the most flavourful foods. Shellfish, red meats and game meats are all high in purines. Only when you have an agonizing attack of gout or even worse kidney stones do you start to even consider the purines in your food.

Not everyone with increased levels of uric acid in their blood stream will develop gout, but if you find your blood contains eleveated levels then it is a good reason to start taking precautions to reduce it. At it’s worst increased uric acid can lead to kidney stones and even kidney failure, as well as gout.

Gout attacks are partly caused by your body trying to protect itself, it sees the uric acid crystals as an invader and white blood cells are sent out to put a safety envelope around the crystals. This is when the pain starts.

The inflammation of the joint is hastened by the occurrence of crystallized uric acid deposits in the person’s joints. These crystallized uric acids may be found in joint or synovial fluid and joint or synovial lining. Intense inflammation develops when white blood cells envelops the uric acid crystals as a defense mechanism. This action causes the release chemicals that results in inflammation. The person will experience severe pain, redness and heat in the area afflicted.

Elevated uric acid in your blood doesn’t automatically equal gout attacks, in fact Dr’s have not been able to link the two unequivocably, it is howver definitely a warning point. If you have pains in your toe joints, inflamation and swelling and then a blood test finds elevated uric acid then it is safe to say that you probably have gout.