Beer, wine, aged proteins, and tyramine
When I first started researching gout triggering foods and drinks, astrong link was made between tyramine and gout. I have not beenable to find those links again, and I seldom hear anything abouttyramine related to gout anymore. If you look at the foods anddrinks that are high in tyramine, they are the same as those listedfor purines (not being a chemist, I do not know if tyramine isperhaps a purine?). This makes sense, as both are concentrated infermented drinks and any aged protein food.
Here is what I have found in regard to my “triggers”:
1. Fermented drinks, rule of thumb: The darker the beverage, thehigher the tyramine, particularly in beers and wines. A darkEnglish ale has TONS more tyramine than a light lager. A heavy darkred wine has TONS more tyramine than a light white wine. Agedcheeses have TONS more tyramine than processed cheeses. Being onewho used to LOVE dark beers, red wines, and all cheeses- I can vouchfor the validity of this rule of thumb, at least in my case. Mymost hellish gout attacks have come after ingesting even smallamounts of red wine, aged cheese, or dark beer- every time all thetime. I do partake in light lagers, processed cheeses, and whitewines on occasion with little or no problem. Distilled spirits onlytrigger attacks if I drink enough to get dehydrated.
2. Canned/ potted meats: AVOID THEM LIKE THE PLAGUE!! Any kind ofcanned meat contains copious amounts of tyramine. I willoccasionally eat tuna, but that’s it. Pates, devilled ham, driedbeef, sardines, anchovies, Spam, etc. guarantee me an attack.
3. Organ meats (liver, gizzards, etc.): These are hard offenders,but the tyramine levels vary with the freshness of the meat. Beingone of the few people who love liver & onions, I learned this lessonthe hard way, too.
There are a great many more foods that are high in tyramine (theseare just the ones that really affected me), and I have included alink here to a site that gives a pretty good description of such:
http://www.mycustompack.com/healthnotes/Diet/Tyramine_Free_Diet.htm