Vitamin d
What is the role of the various D vitamins in themetabolism of uric acid and in gout?
It is known that there is a distinct seasonalitypattern to gout in the Northern Hemisphere:springtime! But there appears to have been no studiesin the Southern Hemisphere on this issue.
Macrophages in the synovial fluid are believed toexpress high levels of a D3 metabolite in goutpatients.
Certainly Springtime is associated with increasedexposure to sunshine and increased Vitamin D levels.
Anyone able to find data on seasonality of gout on the’wrong’ side of the equator?
Anyone able to find data on D3 in gout patients who donot have hyperthyroidism?
Sabina Shamel on September 5th, 2007
This might be a good question but I would suspect a more tightlycoupled relatinship between calcium levels and vitamin D would be abetter place to start and perhaps this relationship does play a rolein gout initiation. It is well known and well documanted that goutattacks, particularly prolonged attacks will result in the depletionof calcium in and around the affected joint. The relationship betweenvitamin D and calcium uptake is also well documented and the overallrole of calcium levels in gout are not, as far as I can find, wellunderstood.
“Macrophages in the synovial fluid are believed to express highlevels of a D3 metabolite in gout patients.”OK, so is this a cause or an effect. The synovial fluid of goutsufferers will be either saturated or supersaturated with sodiumurate, clearly much higher than non-gout sufferers and, therefore,urate metabolites will also be higher there as well.
I personally think that it must be exposure to the color green. Youknow, you go through the entire winter with very little exposure tothe color green and then, all of a sudden, you see green and you havean attack of gout. Green gets expressed much more vividly in thespring time and therefore it clearly could be exposure to the colorgreen. Probably light green too because the summertime, green is muchdarker and the rays of the sun and vitamin D production are evenhigher. So it must be light green, I better get my wife to stopwearing the pretty light green blouse she often wears.
Julius Lucca on September 5th, 2007
Ok, why not make a survey in this list and hopefully we can findsome significant correlation…. let me start first: I live atabout 40 degrees above the equator and my first gout attack occuredsometime in May.
I think there are some in this list who live downunder. Let’shear from them.