Diet taboos for gout patients

There are actually three core dietary taboos for gout patients: never touch ultra-high purine foods such as animal offal, thick broth, and shelled seafood, completely abstain from alcohol (especially beer, rice wine, and liquor), and strictly limit high-fructose foods such as milk tea, carbonated drinks, and honey. Most of the remaining foods can be flexibly adjusted according to their own uric acid levels, so there is no need to be overly taboo.

Don't believe it, I met a 42-year-old brother when I was doing chronic disease science popularization in the community a while ago. The night before, I had a dinner with friends and ate two kilograms of braised pork with three bottles of cold beer. His big toe was throbbing in pain until midnight, and it was swollen like a ripe peach. He couldn't even put on his slippers. Finally, he went to the emergency department with his family supporting him and hopping on one foot. The uric acid level soared to 720 μmol/L, which is a typical acute attack caused by stepping on the dietary red line.

At this point, someone may want to ask, can I also not touch the tofu and soy milk that I usually like to eat? This is actually the most controversial point in the gout diet. Early guidelines did classify soy products as high-purine foods that need to be restricted, but recent research and the new version of the "China Guidelines for the Diagnosis and Treatment of Hyperuricemia and Gout" clearly state that processed soy products can be eaten in moderation - soybeans are ground, During the process of ordering brine, most purines are lost with water, and the human body absorption rate of plant purines is much lower than that of animal purines. As long as it is not an acute attack period, drinking a cup of warm soy milk or eating small pieces of brine tofu every day will not cause a spike in uric acid at all. I have met patients who were so taboo that they did not even dare to touch mapo tofu. As a result, they lost more than ten pounds due to malnutrition, which was completely unnecessary.

There is another pitfall that many southern friends are particularly prone to stepping into, which is Laohuo Liangtang. An aunt from Guangzhou came to me for consultation before and said that she usually doesn’t dare to eat too much meat. She just eats vegetables with rice every day and drinks a bowl of pork bone soup that has been simmered for three or four hours. Why can’t her uric acid go down? In fact, the purine in meat is easily soluble in water. The longer it is simmered, the higher the purine content in the soup. Drinking a bowl of thick Laohuo soup will consume more purine than eating three pieces of ribs. If you really like soup, you can cook vegetable soup or egg drop soup for 15 to 20 minutes, but don’t cook meat and bone soup or mushroom soup for several hours.

As for the often-asked question of whether red wine can be drunk, there is actually no unified conclusion in the industry. Some studies believe that drinking a small amount of red wine will not significantly increase uric acid, while others believe that alcohol will inhibit uric acid excretion, regardless of the amount. To be prudent, you must not drink any alcohol during the acute attack period. If you are in the stable period and your uric acid is particularly well controlled, it is not a big problem to drink half a glass of red wine if you are greedy. Don't use "red wine to maintain your health" as an excuse to drink it every time.

Oh, by the way, there’s another invisible killer that many people don’t notice – added sugar. Two years ago, an 18-year-old high school student came to see a doctor. He doesn't like to eat seafood or drink alcohol. He just drinks Coke as water every day. As a result, during physical education class, his feet suddenly hurt and he couldn't stand up. After a checkup, he found out that he had gout. Fructose will directly promote the production of uric acid when it is metabolized. Whether it is fructose syrup in milk tea, white sugar in carbonated drinks, or honey, which many people think is healthy, the fructose content is very high. Drinking too much of these things will raise uric acid faster than eating two bites of meat.

I have come into contact with too many patients. When I was first diagnosed, I was so nervous that I had to blanch vegetables three times before eating them. I lived a miserable life. As a result, I broke the habit and had a hot pot attack. Instead, it is better to grasp the three core taboos. I usually eat three to five pieces of lean meat occasionally and eat two bites of my favorite vegetables. As long as the amount is controlled, the uric acid can be stabilized and the quality of life can keep up. After all, treating a disease is ultimately about living a good life, right?