5 Interesting Things about Gout

Here are some random yet interesting information that I learned about gout over the years.

Food intake is only 30% responsible for what causes gout flare ups.

The other 70% is caused by the chemical conditions in your own body – specifically the buildup of too much uric acid in the blood and the inability of your kidney to filter out the excess. Listen to your body. Our complex bodies were supernaturally designed to give us signs. We feel pain because there is something wrong somewhere within our body. We have swelling because there is something wrong. Maybe your body is telling you to change your lifestyle and/or diet. Maybe you need to cut something out of your life like alcohol or maybe lower your fast food intake or maybe you’re eating too much desserts. You’ve heard the saying: “You can’t keep doing the same thing and expect different results.”

As I write this, I understand that I’m not better than you or that I’m an expert in diet, but I can say I’ve done some research and I have gout experience. I may be going through the same struggles as you are. I drink alcohol and I don’t have the best diet. But like I said before, I’m on this journey right now and just sharing my thoughts and advice as I’m living my own life.

Water is more helpful than you think.

Especially if you drink alcohol. I’ll continue to repeat this for as long as I drink. I want to be honest to my readers. Without truth, there is really no integrity in anything.

In years prior, I’ve read experts telling people to drink lots of water if you suffer from gout attacks, but I ignored that advice for years. However in recent times I’ve really started to critical think about why I was getting more flare ups, and water was one simple thing that I realized that I may have been neglecting. As I mentioned before, for years I would not drink water during my drinking sessions because it didn’t taste good. Liquid and liquid didn’t really mix for me, unless it was hard liquor on top of beer. So recently I’ve consciously made an effort to drink more water throughout the night, during and after the session. And since I started incorporating more water into my drinking sessions, I haven’t had a single flare up. Knock on wood!

Why alcohol may be the biggest culprit for your gout problems.

I’ll admit I like to drink alcohol. I’m not an alcoholic and I don’t need it, but I’ve been a drinker for most of my adult life. During the height of the pandemic, I drank pretty heavily – some weeks almost every day. These days, I drink maybe once or twice a week, but there are weeks when there are family/friend functions when that number goes up.

Despite the fact that I like drinking, you have to face the truth even though you want to justify doing it. And to face the reality that your favorite vice may be the cause of a major problem in your life, kind of sucks. Now you have to consider quitting or cutting down on something that you enjoy because its negatively affecting another important part of your life; your health.

As you may know, alcohol damages the liver, especially if you drink a lot or you’ve been drinking for a long time. And your liver is one of the organs that helps remove uric acid from your blood. So what do you think happens when your liver loses its ability to filter out uric acid, yes it builds up and triggers a gout attack. But gout flare ups could be just a side effect of a larger problem. A more serious liver problem, like fatty liver, Cirrhosis or cancer. If I’m scaring you, sorry. I want to speak the truth. It scares me too.

Gout is sometimes referred to as the “disease of kings” or “rich man’s disease”

Gout was historically associated with the consumption of rich foods and alcohol, which were more accessible to the wealthy such as kings and members of royalty. However, these days gout can affect people from all walks of life.

Lack of sleep may be associated with gout flare ups

As if watching your diet wasn’t hard enough, sleep may also affect your future gout attacks. Since sleep affects your body’s ability to metabolize uric acid, a lack of or broken sleep, in combination with your health condition may trigger a gout flare up.

Did you find anything interesting or learn something new? Let me know in the comments below.

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