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Hello…I have been watching this site for months now and have gained some good knowledge about my condition with Gout.
I have been a sufferer for years and have been under care from a Rheumatologist for months now. My regular Doctor referred me to the specialist.
I have my Uric acid level down to 5 now but continued to be crippled 2-3 weeks out of each month, I’m on 400mg of Allopurinol and have Celebrex and Colcrys for flair ups.
I am 60-year-old male married with a couple young adult children still in the roost. I’ve stopped eating shellfish, and beef but kept getting flare ups taking about 4 days to 2 weeks to heal. Two or so weeks ago after having an MRI on my knee cause of the extreme pain, I was told it was gout.
Enough…the only thing I hadn’t totally given up was alcohol, no more alcohol for me. I’m testing the waters right now to see it that will end the grief..so far so good.
I’m just wondering if I will ever be able to enjoy any beef again?? Looking for some tips if I can have any beef ever again..any help would be great!
Thank you
Bob
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Bob,
The answer is yes. You are 60 years old, and you’ve probably had Gout for more years than you think. I hazard a guess that it has been more than 20 years, but you only “started” getting flare ups a few years ago because your Uric Acid hit the threshhold.
As Keith and others will tell you, undoing over 20 years of Uric Acid build up, even with 400mgs of Allopurinol is going to take time. And by time, I mean years. Keith has the formula, but it’s going to take awhile. I’m 48 years old, and up until 5 years ago, my Uric Acid was above 8.6. I just had my 3 month blood work done last week and I’m down to 4.6, so the last 3 blood tests have been—4.8, 4.7, and 4.6. But guess what? I still occasionally get a flare up. I manage it just like you do. Hit it with Allopurinol, Colchicine, and a Prednisone pack and within a day it’s gone.
I eat beef occasionally. I drink a few beers, occasionally. I eat fish and shrimp, occasionally. See what I’m saying? Manage your Uric Acid the right way like you are doing, brother. Keep it below 5, like your doing. Treat yourself occasionally, but be vigilant. It’s going to take a long while to lose all Uric Acid and years of damage. But it sounds like you are on the right track, buddy.
Also, go out and exercise if possible and get your blood tested quarterly.
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28 yrs. old and has had gout 2 yrs. His last test levels were at 6.0 but has been as high as 9.. He takes alipurinol daily 400mg. and when he has acute spells takes colcrys. The affected sites are mostly in his knees. It is because of his diet as he has always been a huge meat eater. Mostly chicken, lean pork and occassionaly beef. Eats a few different veggies, but it is impossible to make him eat less proteins and more veggies. He has reduced caffeine and high fructose corn syrup. Any helpful advice would be appreciated.
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Ground Beef and Gout
Hi Kim,
It’s good that your son’s uric acid has fallen to 6. But, getting to 5 would be safer.
Reducing dead animal flesh will help with that. But, that’s not my main concern. Your son is well within the maximum dose of allopurinol. So, increasing to 500 or 600 mg per day is an option. In this regard, gout is easy to manage. But other serious diseases are not so easy to prevent.
Every health authority that I have ever read warns against too much meat. Heart disease, stroke, and cancer rates are consistently reported as being higher when we eat too much meat.
It’s hard to change the habits of a lifetime. But, slow, gradual changes are often very successful. For example, I started adding increased amounts of vegetables to casseroles, ground meat dishes, etc. I also gradually introduced tasty vegetarian meals. Personally, I love macaroni cheese, and spicy Indian vegetable dishes. Everyone has their own plant-based favorites that should be encouraged.
I also realized that improvement is easier when you review your shopping before checkout. This is easiest with online shopping. Each week, change a meat item for a plant item. If that change is too rapid, try once a month.
It takes time. But, slow progress brings lasting results.
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Why is beef always highlighted as a high risk for gout?
Hello,
I would like to give a little background first. I’m a 33-year-old male, slightly overweight but only a few kg. I had never had a gout attack in my life, but in the last 1.5 years I’ve had about 6 attacks.
After the last attack I decided to change my diet to try to fix this problem.
After a little research I read that beer (which I do frequently enjoy) and meats are common causes.
After reading for a few hours I noticed that red meat such as beef (my favourite meat) are often highlighted as bad for gout, perhaps my search was not exhaustive, but many sites mention the dangers of beef.
I read about chicken (my second favourite meat) and read how lean cuts of this are the best.
So from that day I eliminated beef and replaced my meat with chicken breast.
In several months I have not had any gout attacks.
Today, after really craving beef I decided to recheck tables of purine contents per 100g of different cuts of beef. What then surprised me was that for both purine and Uric acid, most cuts of beef are better than chicken breast.
So is 100g of a lean cut of beef actually better for me than 100g of chicken breast?
If this is true then why is beef always highlighted as a “danger meat” whilst lean chicken breast is advertised as a “smart choice”.
If I have missed something important about purines, uric acid and why beef is a danger meat then please let me know. Because if not I’m going to happy add beef back to my diet.
P.S. My daily intake of meat didn’t change, I simply swapped out beef for chicken in the same portion size.
Thank you
Neil
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Chicken breast actually seems pretty bad purine-wise. There are several typed of purines which do not have the same effect. I don’t eat meat so I haven’t looked into the issue but the japanese numbers I just looked at suggest that in addition to its large purine content, the purines mix in chicken breast is worse than in most beef cuts. But the samples might have been biased.
There’s a chance a period without attacks simply coincided with your chicken diet. More extensive trials would be needed to establish that there really is a relationship.
Gout is not all about purines, and it might be something else in beef which triggers gout in some people. It might even depend on how the animal was raised or its health as opposed to the nutritive value of the meat. When something hasn’t been studied properly, you never know.
The fat in many beef cuts might be a problem. Certainly that’s a major difference with lean chicken parts. The processing of different types of fats in the human body has been (indirectly) linked to gout attacks.
And for all we know the problem many seem to have noticed with red meat might have to do with the way people tend to cook or season it rather than with the meat itself. The side-dishes people tend to eat with chicken might also differ.
What we do know is that eating meat of any kind is associated with an increased risk of gout.
At the end of the day, avoiding triggers is only a way to delay the inevitable and the only way to cure gout is to lower the amount of uric acid in your body. Measuring the amount of uric acid in your blood when you are feeling well is the cheapest way to know if a time bomb is ticking or if you’re actually solving your gout problem. -
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