Fructose and Gout

Many thanks to Stan for pointing me to this BBC article and the study it relates to.

Obviously anyone making a habit of soft drink consumption, be that sucrose or HFCS sweetened, is in trouble metabolically. The joy of this report is the association between not only orange juice and gout, but also with apples and oranges as whole fruit. Observational perhaps, but the biochemistry is all there to support causality.

Ultimately fructose is fructose is fructose. Eat an orange and your liver will immediately set about defending you as best it can. When it fails or goes wrong, you get gout.

I like the BBC's picture. The chap with metabolic syndrome and gout is probably wealthy enough in the 1700s to buy sugar and to drink port, possibly the sweetest bulk consumption form of alcohol. Obesity and gout.


A few choice fruity quotes:

"I can think of some situations, for example in severe treatment failure gout, where reducing sweet fruits, such as oranges and apples could help," he added.

Translation, take drugs, more drugs and even more drugs. In absolutely dire straits, dump fruit. Why not just dump the fruit in the first place? Gout drugs do not look to be much fun.

"But this finding needs to be balanced against the benefit of fruit and vegetables in preventing other chronic disorders like heart disease and stroke."

Show me the data!

"...and fructose rich fruits (apples and oranges) were associated with a higher risk, the researchers said."

Quite a lot of fructose in grapes and plums and and kiwis and peaches and bananas and and and...


The nice thing about science is that eventually the truth will out.

Eventually.

Peter