Question for Ted

Prashant: The reason why it worked at night is that people don't eat or take certain drinks immediately before they sleep (or else you get obesity) and it is the drinks and food that you are eating that is activating the gout.

Whatever was eaten during breakfast, the food was high in uric acid. There are four major factors that lead to' gout based on my own observations:

1. High meats
2. High seafood
3. Not drinking enough water
4. High calcium (from potatoes, sundae, ice cream milk, supplements).
5. Either Coffee or Tea may initiate the gout. The coffee might be other components such as milk sugar, etc. that may initiate it. The tea is high in uric. So if you have gout, try something different, by not doing something that you are doing now.
6. Beer, and Liquor seems to initiate gout

Cucumbers seems to be one of them based on some blood tests I have noticed. There are some studies that might deny relationship between gout and coffee, however, i have seen a person who drank a jug of coffee and had a gout attack almost as immediate. It could be certain factors that trigger them, such as milk, sugar, or cream. In any event, the real issue is if you drink a lot coffee and it got worse, then see what happens if you DON'T.

While there is so much conflicting information on gout, what I can say with certainty is alkalizing reduces uric acid, if taken with plenty of water. Calcium is not helpful, more crystalization will lend itself. The other often overlooked issue is the name of gout. Sometimes they are mistaken with arthritis, where in that case a small pinch of borax, in one liter of water may helpful, or that magnesium, where muscle pain and joint pain is due to magnesium deficiency. Taking magnesium citrate 250 mg, and if improvement might be seen.

The cause may be not just the uric, but maybe microbial activities that initiated arthrititic and muscular pain that appears to be gout also. So the cause could be both. Magnesium is anti staph, boron is anti mycobacterium, which might help, in my opinion. Of curse if uric acid is already high, lithium citrate or lithium carbonate between 5-10 mg/day can dissolve uric acid quite efficiently. About 100 years ago people take bath in lithium rich waters to reduce gout as lithium is well know for dissolving uric acid. The lithium rich waters, by the way were high in lithium bicarbonate.

Calcification even without uric acid can initate gout also. In some cases calcium oxalates (from cucumbers, beans, cocoa, chocolate, etc) can initiate that and cause pain too. Therefore vitamin C sodium ascorbate, vitamin B complex might further help as that reduces oxalates by dissolving those.

However, I believe more frequent doses of lemon bicarbonate is necessary during the day also as well as drinking more water.

Ted

Calcium and Protein is the problem!:

1: Br Poult Sci. 2005 Oct;46(5):641-6. Links Clinicopathology of gout in growing layers induced by high calcium and high protein diets. Guo X, Huang K, Tang J.

Institute of Nutritional and Metabolic Disorder in Domestic Animals and Fowls, Nanjing Agricultural University, China.

1. An experiment was conducted to test the independent and combined effects of high dietary calcium and protein concentrations on the induction of visceral gout in growing birds of a layer strain. 2. One hundred and sixty healthy birds were randomly divided into 4 groups at 35 d of age. The different groups were given 4 diets containing normal or high concentrations of dietary calcium or crude protein in a 2 x 2 factorial experiment for 30 d. The diets contained normal calcium (Ca) and crude protein (CP) (NCNP, 8.5 g Ca/kg and 175g CP/kg), high calcium and normal protein (HC, 36.3 g Ca/kg and 175 g CP/kg), normal calcium and high protein (HP, 8.8 g Ca/kg and 245 g CP/kg) or high calcium and high protein (HCHP, 36.8 g Ca/kg and 242 g CP/kg), respectively. 3. Typical visceral gout was induced by the HCHP diet. The HCHP and HC diet caused severe kidney damage. The HP diet did not cause kidney damage, but significantly increased plasma uric acid and inorganic phosphorus concentrations. 4. The HC diet significantly increased plasma uric acid, calcium and sodium, but significantly decreased plasma inorganic phosphorus, potassium and magnesium concentrations. The HCHP diet significantly increased plasma uric acid, calcium and sodium. 5. Urine volumes were significantly higher on the HCHP and HC diets than on the control. The growers raised on HC and HCHP diets had significantly higher total quantity of 24 h urinary excretion of uric acid, calcium, magnesium, inorganic phosphorus and potassium and a significantly lower 24 h urinary excretion of sodium. The growers fed on the HP diet had a higher 24 h urinary excretion of uric acid and inorganic phosphorus than the control. 6. It is concluded that growing layer birds should not be fed on layer rations.

: Lancet. 2004 Apr 17;363(9417):1277-81. Links Comment in: Lancet. 2004 Apr 17;363(9417):1251-2. Lancet. 2004 Jul 17-23;364(9430):246-7; author reply 247. Alcohol intake and risk of incident gout in men: a prospective study. Choi HK, Atkinson K, Karlson EW, Willett W, Curhan G.

Rheumatology Unit, Department of Medicine, Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA 02114, USA. [email protected]

BACKGROUND: The association between alcohol consumption and risk of gout has been suspected since ancient times, but has not been prospectively confirmed. Additionally, potential differences in risk of gout posed by different alcoholic beverages have not been assessed. METHODS: Over 12 years (1986-98) we used biennial questionnaires to investigate the relation between alcohol consumption and risk of incident gout in 47?150 male participants with no history of gout at baseline. We used a supplementary questionnaire to ascertain whether reported cases of gout met the American College of Rheumatology survey gout criteria. FINDINGS: We documented 730 confirmed incident cases of gout. Compared with men who did not drink alcohol, the multivariate relative risk (RR) of gout was 1.32 (95% CI 0.99-1.75) for alcohol consumption 10.0-14.9 g/day, 1.49 (1.14-1.94) for 15.0-29.9 g/day, 1.96 (1.48-2.60) for 30.0-49.9 g/day, and 2.53 (1.73-3.70) for > or =50 g/day (p for trend <0.0001). Beer consumption showed the strongest independent association with the risk of gout (multivariate RR per 12-oz serving per day 1.49; 95% CI 1.32-1.70). Consumption of spirits was also significantly associated with gout (multivariate RR per drink or shot per day 1.15; 95% CI 1.04-1.28); however, wine consumption was not (multivariate RR per 4-oz serving per day 1.04; 95% CI 0.88-1.22). INTERPRETATION: Alcohol intake is strongly associated with an increased risk of gout. This risk varies substantially according to type of alcoholic beverage: beer confers a larger risk than spirits, whereas moderate wine drinking does not increase the risk.