600,000 French people suffer from this disease not particularly glamorous, even old fashioned, but which remains a very real threat in particular … it is unknown, for the heart
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The crisis strikes when there is a prolonged excess of uric acid in the blood. Crystals then form in the joints that trigger the flare-ups. The pain is brutal and intolerable. The toe, which becomes red, swollen, untouchable, because, even if the ankles, fingers or knees can be affected, we still do not know why, it is mainly the base of the big toe which is the privileged site of the crystal deposits. Do we remember the captain in PIM PAM POUM?
The “queen of diseases” and the “evil of kings”! Nicknames given at the time when the people were hungry and where only the rich and the powerful could be victims. Gout has kept this outdated image of a disease caused by good food. Indeed, our new eating habits make it more frequent.
But in fact, uric acid comes from the breakdown of the noblest part of our body, DNA. When a cell dies, the nucleus made up of DNA is eliminated in the form of uric acid. The number of cells that die each day being important – we lose, just for the brain, 70 million neurons per year! – production is not negligible.
In healthy people, the kidney takes care of everything and perfectly rejects this acid in the urine. So it’s true that with a diet rich in beer, sugary sodas, cheap fast food, an excess of appetizers or digestives, uric acid accumulates in the blood and then crystallizes in the joints.
We have known gout since the Middle Ages but we have only known for a few years that to develop it, it is not enough to eat too much with the discovery of the responsible gene. Because gout is mostly a family disease and not just a behavioral disease!
To treat, uric acid can be lowered in the blood and new drugs are very good at removing excess stocks from gout patients. But according to one of the great specialists, Professor Thomas Bardin, of the Lariboisière hospital in Paris, the patient as well as his doctor are too often satisfied with the disappearance of the symptoms, then leaving the excess uric acid to live his life in complete tranquility and provoke, in addition to the occurrence of new very painful attacks, heart problems.
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