Gout Diet Blog

I had some relief from my recent gout attack bydrinking cherry juice. I bought it in a concentratedliquid form (100% cherry juice), and diluted it withSpring Water to make it palpable. I drank threeglasses of it a day. I don’t know if it would be aseffective in pill form (I take it you got it in pillsfrom Vitamin.com?). Most health food stores carry thecherry concentrate, which I have read is the best wayto ingest it for relief from gout.

Cherry juice will be most particularly helpful whenyou are not having an acute attack; it keeps the uricacid levels down.

My doctor told me that peanuts and cashews fall into the category oflegumes and are therefore gout triggers. Any comments? Also, isthere a list of “High In Purine Foods”?

can anyone tell me what kinds of food to cut out of my diet to keepgout flares up down? cetain foods? meats? vegies. ive searched yahoocannot find anything h suitable

Is it alright to drink decafe coke?

Any effect on gout?

What about chocolate bars?

I heard that beans and peas were bad for gout.

What about fresh green beans?

Also, what about cheese?

My initial thoughts about this question of peoples attitude to goutsuffers was that I can now have lots of sex. After all if gout iscaused by MEAT, RICH, FOODS, and ALCOHOL (as per Arnold’s comments)that still leaves me with SEX. OK so meat, rich, food and alcoholhave lead me to gout after 53 years but I’ve had a bloody good 53years and now I can look forward to plenty of sex in my old age.

But is this not just denial ? The fact is that I love meat, I lovebeing rich (by any sort of world standard), I love good food and Ilove alcohol lets face it I’m addicted to effete western society !

I take point about curing uric acid at source withallopurinol primarily to get me back to meat, rich, food andalcohol - but this might be a bit of a cop out. The real point isthat “90% of people with high uric acid levels never get gout”. Welllots of people who smoke cigarettes never get heart disease YEA BUTSOME DO and so it is still worth cutting out the fags.

I remember my grandfather used to buy tins of 50 cigarettes at a timeand used to smoke about 70 a day, it never seemed to do him any harmand he died in his 80’s of something totally unrelated. Yet I can’tsay that I am unhappy that my daughters don’t smoke.

Also although I am not (very) obese (I am six foot and weigh 85kg)and I don’t have symptoms of chronic alcoholism (in that I canabstain for the last two months without any craving) but I do Imean did - drink beer regularly. The fact is that I am a typicalrich (by my parents standards) under-exercised middle-aged man who,amazingly, has never skied at all and therefore I am probably afairly typical gout sufferer.

If 90 percent of people with high uric acid levels never get goutthen 10 percent do and that 10 percent apparently includes me !Maybe I should face up to the fact that that’s just the tough shitway things work out in life.

Maybe gout sufferers like me can’t expect much sympathy andtherefore not the investment in medical research that this diseaseobviously calls for - unless we first face up to that fact the meat,rich, food, alcohol do actually play a big part in this. In factmore and more (especially as I read Walter’s post), I am beginning tosee this as a liver dysfunction (crazy enzymes) and that the kidneysand those white cells have just got a lot of bad press.

But hay, drugs weren’t on that list either ! I still get sex anddrugs that can’t be bad.

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

Isolated chocolate and caffiene as problems for me years ago…onlyrecently discovered that hard excercise was problamatical. Have beenwondering about a sodium connection; I dont drink soda but eat lotsof salty pasta. After all, with our diets, what else is there? I amfascinated by Barry’s post - but dont understand how if uric acid isbeing neutralized, it can still be a problem. Also, what is Bilberryjuice? I used to use cherries, but they were a complete failure thisseason. Anyone know the chemistry behind that? Same for theproponent of vinegar. Cant see why I want more acids going in,curious if anyone can explain that one. Anyone know generally howlong it takes the crystals to dissolve once they find a home in ourjoints? Feels like about a month, but curious if any data. Anyfoods, drugs etc to speed the dissolving? Sorry for the length ofthe post - hadnt had an attack in quite a while but this summer’s waslengthy, and a biggie. PS. Vioxx is sure a lot more pleasant thanthe stomach killer, Indocin.

Chocolate is also an “evil doer” for me…It seems that anythingthat takes away water from my blood stream also triggers my gout. Ijust need to keep my body very hydraded (sorry for spelling) at alltimes. Is there a direct connection with chocolate, teas, coffee, orcarbonation? I find that the more soda pop I drink, the worst itgets too? Any insite is helpful.