What Causes Gout?

Be temperate in wine, in eating, girls, and sloth; Or the Gout will seize you and plague you both.
Benjamin Franklin

The excess uric acid which is not eliminated though urine crystallizes (monosodium urate crystals) and deposits in joints, tendons and surrounding tissues.

What Causes Gout

1. Heredity
Surprisingly, hyperuricemia (excessive levels of uric acid) is commonly found in many people who never develop gout. Scientists are not completely sure what causes hyperuricemia. There is definitely a genetic factor because a person who has close relatives with hyperuricemia is more likely to develop it himself.

Gout is reknown for being passed down genetically. This genetic component disproves the common notion that gout is mainly caused by excessive eating and drinking.

A person can inherit the inability of the body to process urate, which will lead to excessive build up of uric acid in the long run if left untreated.

2. Diet - Foods Rich in Uric Acid
High Purine Foods. One of the predominant causes of gout is a bad diet, meaning a diet high in purine foods, such as seafood and meat, meat organs, liver, beans, spices, rich and creamy sauces such as gravy and ice cream, poultry, sardines, scallops, anchovies and other shellfoods, sweet breads, coffee, and red meat. Foods high in purines can increase blood uric acid levels.

Alcohol, particularly beer - one of the highest alcoholic beverages that contain purines, and wine can increase uric acid levels in the body. Heavy alcohol intake is a risk factor which often precedes a gout attack.

The main reason is that alcohol interferes with the kidney's method of removing uric acid. Primary gout or the most common form of gout is usually what precipitates from this cause of gout attack.

Your doctor may ask you to give up drinking beer or other alcohol. And he or she may suggest trying a detox program of drinking super green food drinks. These come in many types and usually include barley grass, wheat grass, spirulina, etc.

Extremely Low Calorie Diets. Crash diets are also suspected to make gout easy to develop. When one's metabolism gets shocked because of the lack of calories, gout can set in. It is also because when one fasts, lactic acid can start to overproduce and lactic acid interferes with the kidney's ability to process and excrete uric acid.

3. Obesity
Overweight people are also prone to getting gout in their body. The reason is that being overweight means having more tissue available for breakdown or turnover. And this leads to excessive production of uric acid. One of the natural remedies for gout relief is to maintain a healthy body weight.

Vegetables are far less fattening than meat and gravy, so you get a double benefit by changing your eating habits to include more plant foods and less meat. You avoid uric acid and you keep your weight down. 4. Gout as a Complication of Another Medical Condition
Gout can also be a case of being a complication of another medical condition.

High blood pressure is linked to high uric acid levels. High uric levels are also linked to other conditions such as heart disease. These diseases that may tag along with gout include congestive heart failure, preeclampsia, leukemia, preeclampsia, diabetes, Thyroid gland problems such as hypothyroidism, lymphoma and hemoglobin disorders.

5. Hyperuricemia and kidney disease
In most cases, gout is associated with a condition known as hyperuricemia. Hyperuricemia occurs when the blood contains raised levels of uric acid sustained over long periods. The kidneys process uric acid and excrete this through urine. When uric acid levels become raised, the kidneys are unable to eliminate uric acid efficiently.

In some cases, the cause of gout is not linked to hyperuricemia but to kidney disease. Blood uric acid levels can arise when the kidney is not functioning properly. Whichever cause, the kidneys can become damaged when blood uric acid levels are raised over long periods.

The body unable to eliminate uric acid, deposits a hardened crystallized form of uric acid (tophi) usually in the joints and skin. Within the joints, deposits can be made in the joint fluid (synovial fluid) and joint lining (synovial lining).

Common areas for these deposits are the ankles, feet and ball of the large toe. Less common areas of uric acid deposits include the ears and eyes. Tophi, areas of hardened uric acid, may also be seen under the skin around the fingers and toes.

6. Medications - Medicines that Worsen or Cause Gout
Certain medicines can trigger gout or aggravate the occurrence of gout. These medicines that are considered precursors of gout include water pills or diuretics, aspirins, niacin, auto-immune drugs such as cyclosporine, and finally nerve pathway drugs used for Parkinsons disease such as Larodopa/Levodopa, aminophylline, anti-tuberculosis medications, chemotherapy treatment for cancer.

Coupled with high blood pressure and or a mixture of certain medications can be a recipe for disaster.

7. Age
Women are less likely to be affected with gout than men, until their later years. This is probably because women have more of the hormone estrogen, which is said to protect them from hyperuricemia. Women 40 years of age and older who are going through menopause will have a change in hormones. This can make them more prone to getting gout compared to younger individuals.

Other Causes of Gout can be related to :

• Lead exposure from the environment. A lead-induced case of gout was prevalent in Rome, where vessels used in eating or drinking were known to be leaded.
• Crash Diets can Crash Your Uric Acid Metabolism. Diets that restrict calorie can catch one's metabolism off guard and lead to gout. Fasting can cause the production of increased level of lactic acid. This lactic acid gets in the way of kidneys' excretion of uric acid.
• The use of diuretics, also known as "water pills", causes the potassium level of the body to go down and lead to gout.

Go Back from What Causes Gout to Natural Remedies for Gout

Go Back from What Causes Gout to Home Page

New! Comments