Heart-Healthy Diet Helps Gout

Once considered the disease of Kings and wealthy people (with rich diets), Gout is one of the most painful forms of
arthritis one can experience. It’s caused by an excess of uric acid (UA) crystals accumulating usually in the larger
joints of the extremities – hands, elbows, knees, and feet.

Uric acid is produced when the body breaks down a chemical in food called purine. Uric acid supposed to
be eliminated from the body in urine.

The Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension (DASH) diet created decades ago to help improve the risks for heart
health and now generally accepted around the world has now been found to also reduce gout according to a study
led by John Hopkins researchers. High in fruits and veggies, low in dairy and saturated fats, the heart healthy diet
also reduces the processing of purines in the diet and therefore the buildup of uric acid crystals.

In this randomized clinical trial some patients the diet was equal to or greater than the use of the normally prescribed
medications, which can be pretty hard on the gout patient.

Stephen P. Juraschek, M.D., Ph.D., research and clinical fellow in general internal medicine at the Johns Hopkins
University School of Medicine, along with his colleagues, looked at data from the original 1997 DASH studies and
found that improved an individual’s blood pressure and cholesterol. The DASH diet promotes fruits, vegetables,
whole grains, low-fat dairy products as well as reduced salt, red meats, sweets, and saturated fats. The information
from the study also looked at blood markers of uric acid. They found that the diet helped decrease UA in most
patients, the ones with higher starting values of UA had the most dramatic decrease.

While the DASH diet resulted in 0.35 milligrams per deciliter decrease in uric acid concentrations overall, the use of
the drug of choice for UA -allopurinol – reduced patients’ blood uric acid concentrations about two milligrams per
deciliter.
More research is need say the researchers, but it is clear that diet not only helps gout, but also high blood pressure
and cardiovascular disease risk.

Senior author Edgar R. Miller III, M.D. Ph.D., professor of medicine at the Johns Hopkins University School of
Medicine, concluded that the results of this trial can be used to help patients. Along with the reduction of gout irritation
foods such as alcohol, shell fish, candy, beans and cauliflower.

Here are some other natural remedies to help keep uric acid and gout at bay:
Lifestyle changes such as controlling weight, limiting alcohol, increasing water intake,
and making better food choices by increasing those that are alkaline to the system, can
help control gout.

 Cherries/ Cherry juice 
 Oils made from whole nuts and seeds – Supplement oils with a tablespoon of flaxseed oil daily if you
have gout.
 Water – At least 8-12 glasses of water
 High alkalinity foods