Should I eat more of these foods for gout?

[d q]

Quick one for the foodies;

I know there is the ongoing purine from vegetable and purine from animals debate but certain foods really do improve your health. The foods I wanted to very briefly ask about were;

1. Tomatoes – huge controversy surrounding these, safe to eat in quantity?
2. Sweet Potatoes – super foods for you, are they safe?
3. Carrots – Beta Carotene that gets converted to vitamin A, safe to eat daily?
4. Olive Oil – I love this stuff, teaspoon or two daily OK?
5. Honey – the big one, Are we OK consuming this on our daily toast? I mean the expensive Manuka type?

I really want to increase my consumption of these but I hear all sorts of rumours about those. Does anyone have any firm evidence on their record on the gout scene? The intention isn’t to get a purine list, just more so about if they can be incorporated into the gout diet in larger quantities.

(I’m also aware if we are on meds anything is OK, but the question isn’t about if we are on meds, its about the types of food listed).

Thanks.

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Gout Friendly Tomato, Sweet Potato, and Carrot Salad

[nobody]

Good foods vs. bad foods is the wrong approach. You need to look at the whole diet.
For instance if you’re not eating fish or meat, you need to eat large amounts of stuff which isn’t on your list. Tomates and carrots can make you feel like you’ve eaten a lot while olive oil and honey will give you energy… potentially leaving you badly malnourished.
But I’ll play you game anyway. Opinions ahoy!

I think it would be hard to argue against tomatoes and carrots. As always, there’s a point in which “larger quantities” is too much. But within reason, they’re fine. Tomatoes are often reported as a gout trigger for some reason but gout triggers aren’t necessarily the foods which cause gout.
Sweet potatoes are easier to abuse but are in principle OK. Hypoxanthine has been detected in sweet potatoes and there is evidence about hypoxanthine and uric acid but as long as you don’t that stuff with abandon as if it was a less nutritious food, you ought to be fine.
Olive oil obviously contains lots of fat… there’s much potential for abuse there. It could also be a gout trigger (not sure). In any case a couple teaspoons per day is fine.
Honey though… now that’s a fructose bomb! Expensive fructose is still fructose. It’s the one thing in your list there’s decent evidence about (that I’m aware of anyway). If you’re talking a couple of teaspoons, that’s not so bad but the less you eat, the better (again within reason: there’s not going to be a material benefit in reducing very small amounts).

[d q]

Absolutely agreed on the overall diet approach. These ingredients I specifically consume more of for their health benefits. So I was wondering if that was generally a safe bet. I’m on the febuxostat for now which ‘artificially helps’ I guess though.

But I’ll play your game anyway. Opinions ahoy!

Brilliant!

Tomatoes – exactly, most articles I read state it’s a trigger but this (fantastic) site says the opposite on one of its pages. Keith did mention he wanted to revise and re-check the research but I’m not sure if the results have been posted.

Sweet Potatoes – I haven’t read anything in specific but overheard some TV show saying it should generally be avoided yet a simple Google search returns just how low the purine content is. This is stuff is so good for you, it would be a shame to even reduce it.

Carrots – I eat this stuff almost daily. Beta carotene in this stuff is abundant and seriously good for you.

Extra virgin olive oil (forgot to add) – I love this stuff and have it daily with nearly everything. At least 3 tea spoons daily. :/

Honey – I stopped this stuff a year ago but miss it so much. I’ve only ever used the expensive stuff for the health benefits and I do feel a little less energetic in all honesty. Maybe a teaspoon every other day is ok?

Are Walnuts Good for Gout?

What I did forgot to ask about was clementines and walnuts. I have two clementines a day for the vitamin C which from what I understand helps reduce uric acid levels but other sites mention it as sugar galore? Walnuts are super healthy for you and I have a handful of these daily with turmeric tea. Any worries on the walnuts, it would punish me to reduce them if I had to?

I don’t want to make this a food thread but I just to get an insight into those?

An alcohol free Cheers 🙂

[nobody]

Well yeah: there’s sugar in fruits.
Clementines aren’t the best or the worst. Fructose-wise, a clementine could be worth about three-quarters of a teaspoon of honey per clementine. That will of course vary a lot from one clementine to the next.
So there’s little point in obsessing over half a teaspoon of honey per day or a couple of clementines but I figure it’s better to eat more fruits and less honey and that it’d be better to eat more of the ones containing less sugar than clementines such as cherries.
As to vit C, there’s a good bit more of the stuff in kiwi.

Walnuts are very easy to abuse and could potentially be a trigger when abused but if you’re going to avoid fish, walnuts would be especially valuable nutritionally.

[d q]

Fish is too delicious to avoid and I have regular meals of salmon, monk fish and sea bass. I generally eat very healthy except when it comes to rice dishes as I consume a lot of rice – around 4 times a week.

Maybe time to move onto kiwis then. Vitamin C does lower uric acid levels right? That is definitive?

Walnuts a trigger? That’s really worrying as I’ve been eating a handful daily for the last two months. Why would that be?

Thanks

[nobody]

I dare say your rice is likely to be healthier than such fish. Whatever.

I don’t know that the vitamin C thing is definitive. But there’s not much that’s definitive about nutrition. You go with the evidence you have, which suggests that supplements work. Kiwi fruits might be the next best thing but you might want to eat a small bunch daily if you want to do everything to lower your uric acid while avoiding supplements.

Any nuts could potentially be a trigger but walnuts may be among the most risky, not least because people then to like them too much to eat only a few.
Why should it worry you though? You’re going to be triggered by something or other anyway. You might want to avoid your triggers (either sometimes or all the time) but as long as you haven’t noticed anything, no worries.

[d q]

@nobody – It’s strange, sometimes I really understand your posts (and love’em) and sometimes they leave me a little bewildered. On this account bewildered however 🙂

Two questions for you;

1. Are you saying rice I am eating is healthier then fish or not? 🙂

2. The question is weather or not walnuts increase uric acid or not. I’m very disciplined when it comes to my handful (partly because they are expensive!).

I noticed a twitch the other day with lots of tomatoes and meat (Bolognese). Was scary but I seem to be out of the woods, pain seems to have subsided.

Triggered by something or another anyway! Well that’s just dandy! Let’s hope its those crystals dissolving rather then forming 🙂

[nobody]

Tomatoes are a practical way to lower your urine’s acidity so on the one hand they might be useful to some gout sufferers but on the other there are all these reports about them being gout triggers… they could be triggering people for the same reason they (in some cases?) increase OA inflammation.
I never noticed an issue with tomatoes myself. As usual with triggers, you need to carry out your own experiments.

@DQ: I very much doubt walnuts would increase your uric acid when consumed in moderation.
As far as the potential to increase uric acid is concerned, I would be more concerned about aubergines and peppers if you eat unusually large amounts.
And yes: I am of course saying that these types of fish are very likely to contain a lot more toxic stuff than actual rice (I’m not talking about what might be cooked with rice).

[Jean Clyne]

Gout & Tomatoes – Good or Bad?

Tomatoes and other nightshade veggies are generally not recommended for people with osteoarthritis as they may make the inflammation worse. The question here is, how many with gout also have osteoarthritis, as I have.

Also, I found that tomatoes in particular caused acid reflux that was also the worst side effect I got from allopurinol, so I tend to limit them, sad because they are supposed to be healthy for most people.

I am considering getting food allergy and sensitivity testing done to see if that helps give me some answers as to why I get such an inflammatory reaction from some foods. Anyone else done this?

[d q]

@jean – that’s worrying because I eat lots of nightshade vegetables and in large quantities such as aubergines, tomatoes, peppers and chillies (which I believe is a nightshade vegetable). They are all healthy foods from what I understand.

Speaking of chillies which I think you may be mistaken as this research article explains their benefit for osteoarthritis (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24941673)

on another note however; this link (https://draxe.com/nightshade-vegetables/) confirms a few of your symptoms.

If you can get the test done why not? It’ll help confirm and widen your food options.

[Jean Clyne]

Good link and article, thanks. I eat a lot of these as well, especially potatoes , peppers, and cherries of course. All items on these lists however never gave me the joint pain I got from eating meat and since going vegetarian, until recently, have had many fewer symptoms of joint pain whether it is gout or osteoarthritis acting up I’ll find out later this month with a dual acting cat scan. I’ve since gone back to eating a small amount of meat, mainly chicken, which has caused no problems at least so far. Hope to be able to solve this puzzle.

[d q]

@jean – you’re welcome mate. I eat loads of potatoes too. I boil them, cut them then add olive oil and garlic! I don’t think I’ll ever be able to become vegetarian so maybe cutting meat out of my diet will have the greatest UA decrease.

I’m just sceptical about cutting any of this stuff out (except meat) as all of these foods (fruits & veg) have so much long term and short term benefits. Gout isn’t the only thing we should be so worries about.

I still have pains in my foot and both an ultra sound and MRI reported small joint effusion and synovial hypertrophy. My rhumatologist did mention however if the constant pains I get are due to gout then maintaining a long term reduction in Uric Acid levels should eventually clear the issue up. They couldn’t find and evidence of gouty damage on both scans but the pains are still present. I get great painless days, good odd pain days and bad pain days. I’ve just been hoping these recent events are due to uric acid crystals dissolving but with the length of time I’ve had them I’m not so sure anymore. But who knows, this stuff takes months.

[d q]

@nobody – ah! Now I’m with you, you mean all that Mercury and other nasty stuff you may find in fish these days. I totally forgot about those concerns.
I was totally clueless to aubergines and peppers being higher in UA then other vegetables. I eat aubergines at least once a week in quantity and peppers almost nightly :/ (maybe it’s time to reduce at least the bell peppers frequency). I have pure chilli sauces almost every other meal too! Maybe I can reduce a few “ummol’s” just altering a few ingredients in my diet.

On a separate note, kiwis.. I’m going to get on this bandwagon because the vitamin C is indeed mugh higher at the cost of that sweet taste of clementines unfortunately 🙁

I do have a little jam on my daily toast too. It’s the good stuff (no added sugar) but yes it’s a natural fructose hit. Maybe it’s time to reduce that to every other day too!

I mean my UA levels have been pretty much the same for the last 10 years (prior to starting febuxostat) so altering now might be a little late to get an accurate picture if diet changes would make a real difference. I’ll never forget the very first rhumatologist visit where he said you’ll never really get more then 10%-15% or so knocked off your total UA value which would only really take me down to 520ummol or so.

The thing is these foods are so beneficial and sacrificing them to shave a few ummol’s here and there is ultimately useless. What about brain function? Heart function? Etc.

Curiosity here, was your diet very strict prior to febuxostat?

[nobody]

Crystal dissolution can take years. What you’ve experienced is just the start.

I don’t think of my diet as strict since I could probably have lowered my uric acid much further through caloric restriction but some people are appalled at all the things I don’t eat (or only in small amounts). As you may remember, I lowered by SUA by about 25% without drugs or phytotherapy even though I was already on a weak gout diet before losing that quarter.
I’ve only relaxed my diet a little bit because I’m used to eating that way by now. The only thing I want to do that might significantly raise my uric acid is to keep reducing my dairy consumption.
The two things that are shown to make a big difference to uric acid are to quit alcohol and to replace animal flesh with dairy. And uric acid aside, I’m not a big fan of either. Sugar/fructose comes third I guess but I’ve got diabetes as well as gout in the family so I’m not going to be eating much sugar anyway.

Malnutrition aside, the data I’ve seen so far about supposedly beneficial foods has been distinctly unimpressive. It seems both heart and brain function just fine on any diet which doesn’t kill you. Clogging your arteries through consumption of fatty meats will for instance kill. A lack of faddy foods won’t.
You can take supplements containing the stuff reasonable people want to get out of fish by the way. For instance over here regular shops sell fortified rapeseed oil.

About aubergines and peppers: mind you, you have to eat a lot of that stuff for it to make a material difference. Unless you eat at least 5 times more of that stuff than fish, it would be pointless to change anything.

[Rich Blazeski]

I think I ate last summer like at least 30 kgs of tomatoes..from my garden very good quality, everyday tomatoes salads with cucumber, onion and cheese..for me was ok, no issues.

[d q]

@rich “last summer 30kgs of tomatoes” simply brilliant Well I haven’t cut my consumption of tomatoes either. Tomatoes are way way to delicious! 🙂

@nobody – sorry about the diabetes mate / what type?. Good friend of mines girlfriend has it too. Insulin in the car and her bag. poor girl. lovely person. Personally, never really enjoyed drinking from day one and now I’ve stopped completely. Social pressure initially but now I’ve become totally immune. Dairy is my favourite. Whole Milk Yogurt (onken) with nearly every meal. Simply delicious. Big fan of cheese. Love milk too. I cant imagine what would happen if I cut that all out. After all that might be keeping my UA at 580 rather then maybe 780! Supplements have to meet a criteria to be good. Synthetic crap will eventually do you over. Brother, eating healthy isn’t about what benefits you need to see its about the benefits you don’t see.. 🙂

p.s. got an update for you in a separate post.

[nobody]

The type you develop as an adult and which can be mitigated by cutting out sugar. I don’t have it but some relatives did/do, which is why I took action when the doc pointed out the worrying blood tests. The tests are better now, not great but stable.

As a skeptic, I don’t put much stock in the unseen (or in feel-good words).

[d q]

So pretty much the diabetes my father has. Good to hear your levels are better and stable now mate.

Scepticism is painted pessimism brother. You gotta engage more in optimism and achievement and most importantly hope. That’s what I’m clinging onto anyway 🙂

p.s. drifting back to diet for a sec, I was wondering if you know much about sesame seed paste? There is a food that I like which requires me to add some and was a little concerned with purine content?

Cheers.

[nobody]

I don’t know their purines content but I’d be surprised if purines were a problem considering the amounts you’re likely to use.
With few exceptions, plant products don’t contain very many purines relative to their volume. They might however contain pretty large amounts of purines compared to their protein or caloric content.

[Author]

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