Meri Pekkanen: Occupational therapy, nutrition and other hot health stuff

Beating the terrible gout

Gout, that wicked and painful lifestyle disease that I would otherwise be completely ignorant of, used to terrorize my dad ever now and then. The pains just attacked out of nowhere and lasted several days if not weeks. My dad and I had read everything about the gout diet and the purines in food which are said to cause gout. My dad obeyed most of the time: no red meat, no beans, no shrimp, no seeds…

Then, in the beginning of last fall 2009, I ran into this article: Gout: The Missing Chapter from Good Calories, Bad Calories. In the article Tim Ferris, the keeper of the Four Hour Work Week blog summarizes the mechanism behind gout and the conclusion is, the purines are pointless! In gout, as well as almost every other known lifestyle (and several other) diseases the diet DOES play a remarkably important role and a diet LOW IN CARBOHYDRATE especially. It seems, that the gout attack is caused by sugar, fructose (fruit sugar) and glucose (also glucose sirap/high fructose corn sirap present in many of the prepared foods, candy et cetera).

Having this knowledge as my guideline I designed my dad a new diet that he immediately begun to follow. Results? Six months gone and no gout pain in sight! My dad’s lost the last few pounds, looks fitter and does a good job working out at the gym and has no problems of following the diet approximately 85% of the time, which is enough to work it’s magic.

So, if you want to give it a go, base your diet on these few principles:

• cut the carbs: as little bread, pasta, rice, potatoes, sugary and starchy things as possible, also minimize fruit intake
• eat read meat, fish, shrimp, chicken, turkey, game meat, eggs and full-fat cheese for protein
• eat butter, organic coconut oil, olive oil, nuts (except for peanuts which are actually legumes) and seeds for fats
• eat plenty of (no potatoes, sweet potato, corn or yams) vegetables and berries

There it is. Quite classical low carb diet that works perfectly for gout as well. I also suggest to avoid any additives, especially E621, ready made marinades and meals. Opt for as unrefined food that you can and prepare the most of it yourself. Prefer organic whenever it’s possible, especially buying fatty meats.

March 1, 2010 at 21:18 Leave a comment