The many people who suffer from painful attacks of gout will be able to feel guilty. The development of the disease is not entirely due to their poor diet.
For centuries, gout has been a man in his fifties, bloated and eating too many rich foods and organ meats. A new study published in the BMJ challenges this assumption, arguing that genetics is a much more important risk factor than diet for this common disease.
To reach these conclusions, the medical records of 8,414 European men and 8,346 women were scrutinized. All were over 18, and none suffered from kidney disease or gout. For each case, the researchers looked at their level of uric acid (urate) in the blood, too high of which is associated with gout.
Food explains less than 1% of the variation in urate levels
The analysis revealed that seven foods are associated with high levels of uric acid (beer, liquor, wine, potato, poultry, soft drinks and meat) and eight foods are associated with reduced levels of urate (eggs , peanuts, cereals, skim milk, cheese, brown bread, margarine and fruit). However, each of these foods would explain less than 1% of the variation in urate levels.
Similarly, a poor diet increases the level of uric acid in the blood (uricaemia), but explains less than 0.3% of the variations observed between people. On the other hand, the genetic analysis of these same people reveals that common genetic factors explain almost a quarter (23.9%) of the variation in uric acid levels. And there, we frankly change scale.
Make patients feel guilty
“Our data challenges widely held perceptions that gout is primarily caused by diet, showing for the first time that genetic variants contribute significantly more to gout than dietary exposure,” the researchers say. . Thus, “much of the preponderance of patients with hyperuricemia and gout is not modifiable”, they conclude.
Enough to allow patients to no longer feel guilty, but above all to alert themselves when a family member has gout. Because of genetics, gout runs in families and you should consult whether you are a man or a woman, because gout is less painful and easier to treat at first.
Gout “poses a real public health problem which is part of diseases linked to poor diet in the same way as obesity and diabetes”, but not only explained to us last year Professor Thomas Bardin, head of the rheumatology department at the Lariboisière hospital in Paris. Over the past 20 years, the incidence of gout has doubled in women where it more often takes the form of atypical polyarthritis.
A very painful disease
Gout is a common chronic disease, linked to an excess of uric acid in the blood (hyperuricemia) which leads to its deposit in the body in the form of microcrystals of uric acid in the joints and other tissues. It is characterized by the appearance of sudden attacks of joint pain, very painful, which are accompanied by redness, warming and swelling of the affected area.
In general, it is the big toe that is most often attacked in men, but other joints can be damaged, especially in women. This deposit of microcrystals in the body is accompanied by chronic inflammation which is pejorative for cardiovascular risk. It is therefore not a “folkloric” disease that could be neglected, especially since the treatment is very simple if the consensus objectives are achieved.
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