Granola, Oatmeal and Gout at Breakfast

Oatmeal and Gout explains how oatmeal might be good for gout. But, we should focus on a healthy whole diet. Because we don’t yet know enough to balance between the high fiber of oats against the high sugar content of granola.

Granola, Oatmeal and Gout Purpose

My intention with this article is to encourage Gout Dieters to identify those foods that can contribute towards their uric acid treatment plan. So that they can make dietary changes that support the professional recommendations of their health advisers. Please note that I’ve added a list of foods below that, like oatmeal, are associated with reduced or no risk of gout.

As with most my information that supports gout dieters, this page is also useful to Gout Foodies, Gout Patients, and Gout Foodies. So if you are not sure which type of gout sufferer you are, start at Questions for Gout Sufferers.

Granola and Gout

You can find granola in the Gout Foods Table for Breakfast Cereals and, as a granola bar, in the Gout Foods Table for Snacks. I was a little annoyed when I first looked at granola and gout, as I thought the diversity of granola recipes would make it impossible. Then I got really annoyed, but more of that shortly.

Oatmeal and Gout

As a breakfast cereal, all the granola items in the gout foods table are similar. They do not get highlighted as high-value cereals because, despite being a valuable source of fiber, they are very high in total sugar. If the rest of your diet is low in sugar, then granola makes a good choice. The main ingredient is oatmeal, and this does not significantly affect gout inflammation or uric acid. However, oatmeal is high in fiber. Which might be important. Because a study of rats shows that fiber might reduce the number of purines converted to uric acid^[1]. But that study is a long way from showing benefits of fiber to uric acid in gouty humans. So, the best you can do is to focus on generally healthy foods as part of a healthy gout foundation diet.

As whole grains are recommended as one-quarter of all you eat, breakfast cereals are an important start to the day, and a fine opportunity to load up on healthy grains. The big drawback that really annoys me is due to fortification of many breakfast cereals. As gout sufferers, we know that excess iron is very bad for gout. Yet, many otherwise healthy kinds of cereal are fortified with iron and other supplements. The good news for granola lovers, if you can live with the high sugar content, is that granola is low in iron.

If you have a low sugar recipe for granola, please share in the gout support forum. You can also use the forums to ask for any help you need about planning and improving your gout foods.

I continue to investigate gout foods. Because there are always new scientific reports that investigate different aspects of gout diet. Be sure not to miss them by subscribing to my gout update service:

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Oatmeal & Gout Comments

From earlier versions, I include older comments:

Oatmeal and Uric Acid

Michael asked if there were any more recent studies of the effects of oatmeal on uric acid. Especially, “as oats are plants, do they follow the rules about vegetable purines not raising uric acid”. As I informed him, I remain unaware of any specific studies regarding oatmeal consumption and uric acid levels. However, there are several studies that cite the 2004 investigations showing that high-purine vegetables, including oatmeal, are not associated with increased uric acid^[2].

Intake of purine-rich vegetables was not associated with hyperuricemia. Vegetables such as carrots and mushrooms were found to be inversely related with hyperuricemia in the study done in Taiwan. Other vegetables found to confer a decreased risk of gout include peas, beans, lentils, spinach and cauliflower. These vegetables, and oatmeal, are important sources of protein that can replace meat or seafood-based proteins.^[3].

That report also includes a list of foods with decreased risk, or no risk, for gout and high uric acid:-

• Vitamin C, cherries; fruits in general.
• Coffee.
• Milk, yogurt; low-fat dairy, skim milk powder
• Carrots, mushrooms, peas, beans, lentils, spinach, cauliflower
• Oatmeal
• Vegetable-based meat substitutes
• Soy-based foods
• Tea, diet soft drinks – no risk
• Red wine

Oatmeal & Gout Related Topics

Please remember: to find more related pages that are relevant to you, it's usually faster to search for your biggest oatmeal concern.

Is oat milk good for gout?

For progress on resolving this concern, please see Is oat milk good for gout.

Oatmeal & Gout References

1. Koguchi, Takashi, Hisao Nakajima, Masahiro Wada, Yuji Yamamoto, Satoshi Innami, Akio Maekawa, and Tadahiro Tadokoro. “Dietary fiber suppresses elevations of uric acid and allantoin in serum and urine induced by dietary RNA and increases its excretion to feces in rats.” Journal of nutritional science and vitaminology 48, no. 3 (2002): 184-193.
2. Choi, Hyon K., Karen Atkinson, Elizabeth W. Karlson, Walter Willett, and Gary Curhan. “Purine-rich foods, dairy and protein intake, and the risk of gout in men.” New England Journal of Medicine 350, no. 11 (2004): 1093-1103.
3. Torralba, Karina D., Emerson De Jesus, and Shylaja Rachabattula. “The interplay between diet, urate transporters and the risk for gout and hyperuricemia: current and future directions.” International journal of rheumatic diseases 15, no. 6 (2012): 499-506.