SEAFOOD, RED MEAT INCREASE RISK OF GOUT

Eating less red meat and seafood while consuming more low-fat dairy products cuts the risk of developing the painful joint condition gout by about half, according to researchers who studied the diets of thousands of men. Eating lots of vegetables and fruit, shunning alcohol use and maintaining a normal body weight also significantly reduced the chances of getting gout, the most common form of inflammatory arthritis in men.

“Every single seafood type we looked at associated with increased risk of gout,�?said Dr. Hyon K. Choi, a rheumatologist at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. “This is the first evidence that dairy products can be protective,�?he added and the first confirmation that gout can be triggered by foods rich in a substance called purine that’s often associated with high protein levels. Gout affects about 3.4 million American Men, causing sometimes-excruciating pain in feet and joints, but is less common in women, occurring only after menopause.

The link between gout and rich foods and alcohol has led to its reputation as a disease of middle-aged rich men. Famous suffers included Charlemagne, Henry VIII, charles Darwin, Benjamin Franklin and Leonardo da Vinci. Researches at Massachusetts General, Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard’s medical and public health schools followed 47,150 men with no history of gout. The men were part of a long-running health study of male health professionals. They were questioned periodically about how much of 130 foods and beverages they consumed the previous year and about their weight medications and medical conditions.

When the study ended in 1998, new cases of gout had been documented in 730 men. The study was reported in today’s edition of the New England Journal of Medicine. “This study says diet may be one of the most effective means of actually preventing [and controlling] gout�? said Dr. John Klippel, president of the Arthritis Foundation. Purine is a compound in each cell, but the amount varies from food to food. Digestion breaks purine down into uric acid. Gout is caused by too much uric acid in the blood. The excess uric acid forms crystal deposits in joints, particularly in feet and ankles. �?/FONT>