Be careful! You can also get gout if you don’t eat seafood or drink alcohol! Just because... you also have these habits

According to Hangzhou Daily, the Rheumatology and Immunology Department of Zhejiang Provincial People's Hospital recently received a patient whose right foot was red and swollen and she could only wear slippers. The test results showed that the blood uric acid concentration exceeded 500μmol/L.

However, the strange thing is that this woman has neither drunk alcohol nor eaten high-purine foods such as seafood during this period, and she has no history of gout. Why is the blood uric acid so high?

After questioning, the attending doctor, Chief Physician of the Rheumatology and Immunology Department Ying Zhenhua, preliminarily determined that the patient's symptoms were indeed gout, which was related to some medications he had recently used.

It turned out that the patient had been married for three years and had never conceived a child. After going to many doctors, it was finally determined that the cause of infertility was an immune disease. After half a month of symptomatic treatment, gout symptoms appeared. After that, the medication was adjusted and the woman's condition improved significantly.

Doctors remind: "If you take drugs that affect kidney function or prevent uric acid excretion for a long time, you should regularly test the concentration of uric acid in your blood and adjust the dosage of the drugs regularly to prevent gout."

These 8 situations in life

Will cause uric acid fluctuations

Uric acid is a metabolite of purine. Generally speaking, when the production of uric acid in the body increases or (and) the excretion decreases, it will cause an increase in uric acid. The higher the blood uric acid level and the longer it lasts, the greater the possibility of gout.
So, what situations affect the uric acid content in the body?

1. Drinking fructose-containing beverages

Huang Jianlin, director of the Rheumatology and Immunology Department of the Sixth Hospital of Sun Yat-sen University, said that epidemiological studies in recent years have found that frequent consumption of fructose-containing beverages increases the incidence of gout. Fructose inhibits the excretion of uric acid by the kidneys, and the dual effects lead to hyperuricemia. Whether a large amount of fructose is consumed at one time or a large amount is consumed over a long period of time, it can lead to elevated blood uric acid. The same is true for freshly squeezed fruit juice.

2. Drinking

Zhi Jiehua, deputy chief physician of the Department of Gastroenterology at the First People's Hospital of Yangzhou, Jiangsu Province, pointed out that some people think that alcohol is safe because it contains low purine levels. In fact, the effect of alcohol on uric acid has nothing to do with the level of purine. It can interfere with uric acid concentration through metabolism. The more alcohol in the body, the more residual uric acid. [3]

3. Consuming a lot of high-purine foods

The purine content of general foods generally follows the following pattern: animal offal, shellfish > dried beans, nuts > leafy vegetables > cereals > fruits. [4]

Source of chart: The Third Affiliated Hospital of Guangzhou University of Chinese Medicine [4]

4. Lack of sleep

Xu Linghan and Zhang Xiaoyan from the Department of Nephrology at Zhongshan Hospital Affiliated to Fudan University published an article on the hospital's official account, saying that they conducted a questionnaire survey on 8,289 adults in nine provinces and cities along the eastern coast of my country. The respondents were divided into three groups: those who slept 5-6 hours a day were considered insufficient sleep; those who slept 7-8 hours a day were considered normal sleep; and those who slept 9-10 hours a day were considered excessive sleep.

The results showed that one in five people in the sleep-deprived group suffered from hyperuricemia, with a prevalence rate of 19.8%, significantly higher than that in the normal sleep group and the excessive sleep group. [5]

5. Not interested in exercise

Xu Linghan and Zhang Xiaoyan introduced that long periods of sitting and reduced daily exercise can also lead to elevated blood uric acid levels. Studies have found that during aerobic exercise, blood uric acid levels will increase immediately at first because of the temporary accumulation of energy-rich purine phosphates, but then blood uric acid will continue to decline as exercise consumes it, eventually reaching a lower level than before exercise.

6. Obesity

Han Guangming, chief physician of the Rheumatology Department of Dongguan People’s Hospital, said that elevated uric acid levels are also related to changes in body weight. Studies have found that the average blood uric acid concentration in overweight or obese adults is significantly higher than that in normal-weight adults. [6]

7. Suffering from certain diseases

Dr. Han Guangming mentioned that the body may experience an increase in endogenous purine production, such as in leukemia, after chemotherapy for malignant tumors, psoriasis, hemolytic diseases, and a large amount of ATP decomposition in skeletal muscle after strenuous exercise. In addition, chronic renal insufficiency can also cause a decrease in uric acid excretion. [6]

8. Taking certain medications

According to Hangzhou Daily, Director Ying Zhenhua compiled the common drugs that cause gout: "For example, some Chinese herbal medicines, such as those containing aristolochic acid, may affect kidney function and uric acid excretion, and gout patients should use them with caution; antihypertensive drugs containing diuretics can reduce the kidney's ability to excrete uric acid and cause uric acid to rise; and some vasodilators can reduce renal blood flow and uric acid excretion. In addition, there are some immunosuppressants and antibiotics, which should also be used with special attention."

Source: Health Times, Science Popularization China