Gout Daily News and Information
Gout and You: Your Diet, Your Life, Your Natural Options
Can gout sufferers eat fast food?
By XANTHA LEATHAM HEALTH AND SCIENCE REPORTER FOR THE DAILY MAIL
PUBLISHED: 17:22 EST, 14 August 2022 | UPDATED: 17:22 EST, 14 August 2022
Continue reading “Binge-eating and lack of exercise during lockdown has triggered huge increase in gout, data suggests”
Continue reading “Gout Diet: Are Impossible Burgers/Foods Impossible To Be Good For You?”
Sugar intake has risen dramatically over the last century which seems to correlate closely with the rise in obesity, diabetes, and metabolic syndrome. Simple sugars include both glucose and fructose. While glucose is generally utilized by the body for energy production, fructose is known to produce high amounts of harmful substances. Added sugars to our food sources mostly stem from fructose, and fructose metabolism can cause some pretty significant damage. Fructose can actually deplete our energy sources, cause death to our cells, stimulate fat making enzymes, and produce excess uric acid.
Studies on rats have shown fructose intake to instigate all markers of metabolic syndrome – increased waistline, obesity, diabetes, hypertension, non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, lipid abnormalities, dementia, cardiovascular disease, and cancer. These studies have also shown high fructose intake to stimulate free radicals, weaken the arteries, create a fatty liver, and cause kidney damage. Continue reading “Fructose and Uric Acid Metabolism”
As we know, inflammation is the major underlying factor behind chronic, degenerative diseases. The body’s cells work very hard to maintain pH balance in the body. Our typical American diet and lifestyle is largely acidic and makes this process extremely difficult.
When overly acidic imbalances are present in the body, the cellular health is compromised. Decreased cellular oxygen levels and metabolic declines cause cells to ‘die off’ at a rapid rate. As acidic residues increase, the body attempts to buffer these acids with alkaline minerals (calcium, magnesium, sodium and potassium) in order to excrete them from the body. In the presence of such acidic diets and lifestyles, this buffering system can easily reach maximum capability, quickly leading to acidic waste storage in the tissues.
Cells require very specific ion balance. Electrolytes must be maintained within specific limits to balance the pH of the body’s environment. Even the slightest acid increases can quickly lead to inflammation of the organs and tissues. Continue reading “Electrolyte imbalances, Inflammation, and Disease”
Canola oil has been marketed as a healthy choice for cooking, widely used in many homes and most restaurants. However, the truth of the matter is that Canola oil is just about anything but healthy! Yet, the FDA has not only deemed it safe for consumption, but actually supports it being labeled “healthy.”
Canola oil was originally developed in Canada, Canadian “ola”, which means oil. Canola oil comes from a seed called rapeseed and was mostly used for industrial purposes. Rapeseed oil was the source of the chemical warfare known as mustard gas. The US banned rapeseed back in 1956 when soldiers and civilians began experiencing blistered lungs and skin. The canola plant does not occur naturally in the wild, but instead has been bred by BIG agriculture. In other words, it is a genetically modified plant, or GMO. Since Canola oil is cheap to manufacture and mass produce, it was modified to remove the lethal eruric acid. It took the food industry over a decade of genetic engineering to obtain the GRAS (generally recognized as safe) nod from the FDA. Initially the rapeseed name was changed to LEAR (low eruric acid rapeseed), and then to Canola Oil. Continue reading “Is Canola Oil really good for you?”
Is it just a coincidence that ever since we adopted low-fat and fat-free diet plans our health deteriorated? The craze began back in the 70’s and 80’s, and by the early 90’s foods with little to no fat were flying off the shelves. The American Heart Association, food manufacturers, physicians, and even drug manufacturers had convinced us that all saturated fats led to obesity and heart disease. People began trading nuts for pretzels, whole milk for skim, potatoes -hold the sour cream, and even still buying cookies so long as they were labeled “fat free.” Dietary fats and all cholesterol were deemed to be bad for our health. Yet, over this same 30+ year time span of ‘healthier’ eating the incidences of obesity, diabetes and cardiovascular disease have soared to alarming rates. In addition to all of the fat-free products flying off of the shelves, so have the cholesterol-lowering and blood pressure lowering drugs.
So wait…… Continue reading “Low-fat Diet Myths and Our Deteriorating Health”
The age old question when it comes to avoiding Gout attacks, “WHAT CAN I EAT?” If only the answer was as simple. I can’t tell you how many conflicting ideas and suggestions I’ve come across in my many years working with this painful condition. What we’ve come to be certain of is that following a low purine approach alone can lead you into some serious confusion and even more serious trouble.
Before we go further in suggesting what to eat when you are at a fast food place like Chipotle, it is important to understand that gaining control of your Gout is vital to your continued success and ability to splurge. Bringing the uric acid levels into a manageable range will allot you a bit more freedom in the diet area. We’ll elaborate on this in posts to come.
Back to the main subject – THE CHIPOTLE ORDER!! Skip the white rice, skip the tortillas (soft and crispy), and limit the meat. Order a bowl and load on the veggies. Load on the romaine lettuce, double up on the onions and peppers, go for the hot salsa if you can, load on the sour cream, load on the guacamole, and go light on the meat and cheese. The goal here is aiming more for an acidic/alkaline balance and worrying less about the purines. Olé!
