What is the importance of fructose in gout?
Which drink causes gout?
found in relatively high amounts in meat, especially organ meats. Obviously, anyone with gout should avoid dietary sources of purines. Ah, if only life were so simple! It reminds me of the truism that eating fat makes you fat... If that were true your average dietician would have cured the current obesity epidemic easily by now.
No, gout is much more interesting.
Uric acid is a breakdown product of the purines, adenine and guanine. These compounds are
Gout is triggered by the presence of crystals of uric acid in your joints. It extremely painful. Many people with gout have high levels of uric acid in their blood stream. Oddly enough some people with gout do not have high levels of uric acid in their blood. Dig deeper.
Fructose is an unusual sugar for humans to eat. We have no system to break down fructose polymers. The only sources of fructose we can use are the simple sugar in fruit or honey and as the molecule combined with glucose as sucrose, ie table sugar. Drenching your metabolism with fructose is a recent innovation for humans. The current preferred sweetener for soft drinks is "high fructose corn syrup", a product of our dearly beloved food industry in the last thirty years or less.
What happens when you drench you metabolism with fructose? It enters the metabolic pathway of carbohydrate below its main control step and is immediately converted to fructose-1-phosphate. Quite why evolution has arranged things this way is a mystery, but my suspicion is that evolution does not like free fructose in human metabolism. So drinking a small bucket of cola will put 100gm of fructose in to your liver. This will require a large input of phosphate to for the fructose-1-phosphate, leaving very little for the generation of adenosine tri phosphate (ATP), the primary energy currency of our cells. A lack of ATP triggers activity of the degradation system for adenine and the production of, guess what, uric acid! Gout, and not a serving of kidneys in sight. Until 100 years ago only the rich could afford enough sugar to get gout, now it is a feature of metabolic syndrome and available to all.
Incidentally the fructose has to be "put" somewhere, and that is in to fat for storage, via elevated triglyceride levels in the blood. It causes insulin resistance too. Even the full metabolic syndrome!
In fact, probably the truth is that fructose causes insulin resistance, which causes gout. The hyper uricaemia and the fact that the joints produce uric acid crystals do not have to be causally related. I'd say they're not.
Incidentally, these bright researchers are looking for ways to minimise the self poisoning caused by fructose. They are actually suggesting looking for a drug to allow you to drink high fructose corn syrup witho
Medical Conditions and Medications
There are many medical conditions that can elevate serum uric acid levels and the risk of gout, including hypertension, renal insufficiency, congestive heart failure and other conditions associated with severe tissue hypoxia, proliferative and inflammatory disorders associated with increased cell turnover Nevertheless, large-scale epidemiologic quantification of potential impact from these conditions has been limited to several relatively common conditions, such as hypertension (or high blood pressure) and renal insufficiency). Similarly, there are many substances and medications that can elevate serum uric acid levels and the risk of gout; however, large-scale epidemiologic data have been limited to several agents such as diuretics and postmenopausal hormone therapy
ut the rise in uric acid.
What Is Gout?
According to the National Arthritis Data Workgroup, an estimated 6 million people in the United States report having experienced gout at some point in their lives. In fact, gout is the most common form of inflammatory arthritis in men over the age of 40.
So, we know that it's a form of arthritis, but there's a lot more to it. Gout is a painful form of arthritis that is caused byhigh uric acid levels in your blood (hyperuricemia). Gout attacks occur when excess uric acid forms crystals, causing inflammation in your joints that leads to swelling and pain. As your uric acid level rises, so does the potential for gout and gout flares. Over time, gout attacks can become more severe, last longer, and occur more often. Decreasing your uric acid to the recommended level (less than 6 mg/dL) can reduce the risk of gout attacks over the long term. And there are options that may help get you there
High Uric Acid
Painful attacks may be the symptom most associated with gout, but you shouldn't let them prevent you from addressing its underlying cause. Gout is caused by a buildup of uric acid in your blood (hyperuricemia). As your uric acid level rises, so does the potential for gout and gout flares.
There are pain medications available to help during gout flares. But taking steps to decrease your uric acid and keeping it at a healthy level (less than 6 mg/dL) can help you manage gout over the long term.
There are options that may help get you there. So, if you're still suffering from gout flares, it's time to take action. Talk with your healthcare professional about your flares and your high uric acid level.