Milk helps gout meat and seafood do not

Main Category: Gout
Article Date: 10 Mar 2004 - 0:00 PDT

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If you want to prevent painful gout you should drink milk and dairy products. You should not, however, eat lots of red meat and seafood.

This is according to a report in the New England Journal of Medicine.

Dr. Hyon Choi, study leader, said that this is the first evidence that dairy products can be strongly protective against gout. Dr. Choi works at the Massachusetts General Hospital.

Beans, peas, mushrooms, spinach and cauliflower do not seem provoke gout, the researchers said. People used to think they did.

The team monitored 47,250 male health professionals.

According to the team, if you eat an extra portion of beef, pork or lamb each day your risk of developing gout goes up by 21%.

If you have an extra seafood meal a week you risk goes up by 7%. Strangely, this risk is most prevalent among men who are not overweight.

If you drink one to five glasses of low-fat milk per day, your risk goes down by 43%, said Dr. Choi.

WHAT IS GOUT?

What is gout? Gout is a very painful condition. Here we will define gout, and discuss the cause, symptoms and treatment. Gout, also called gouty arthritis, is caused by an accumulation of uric acid in the blood. The disease usually appears in midlife and primarily in males. It can be hereditary or the secondary to some other disease process. The main symptom of gout is severe pain and swelling in joints, but gout usually effects one joint at a time, then may move from one joint to effect another joint.

The kidneys filter uric acid out of the body. In gout the body makes excess uric acid or the kidneys fail to function properly, failing to rid the body of the uric acid and it begins to build up in the joints in the form of uric acid crystals. This condition is very painful. The accumulation of these crystals causes severe pain and swelling in the joint. A common site for gout is the big toe joint. But gout can occur in an ankle, knee, elbow, wrist or finger. Typically the onset occurs at night with excruciating pain, swelling and inflammation.

Certain foods and alcohol may contribute to the rise in uric acid and the increase in the severity of the symptoms. Also drinking plenty of water, helps keep the kidneys filtrating properly.

Checking uric acid levels is how gout is diagnosed. Sometimes fluid has to be extracted from the joint with a needle and syringe.

There is antigout medication that is given to help alleviate symptoms and prevent attacks, by keeping uric acid levels down. Most of the medicines do have side effects.