Low carb diet for pre diabetic with Gout

[SueC-R]

I am supporting a family member who has regular gout attacks which appear to be related to red meat and high sugar intake. We need to read more around this can you please advise.
How much can cherry tablets help and how long do they need to be taken for?

 

[Brunneria]

Hi and welcome.

We have had 2 or 3 recent threads on Gout which you may find interesting to read. I am afraid I don't have the links to hand, but if you do a forum search on 'gout' (search box is top right of screen) you may find it useful.

I have a friend who recently developed gout (diet mainly carbs and protein, little veg, some alcohol and several other health conditions) so it is something that I am kind of noticing now - but I am afraid I don't know nearly enough to comment - yet

 

[JenniferW]

I'm T2 and also have attacks of gout.

I was diagnosed with T2 in spring 2015, after almost 10 years in the pre-diabetic range. I take no medication, because so far, my highest HbA1c has been 48 (lowest 46). I went on an X-PERT course last year, learnt about carb counting and over the last 18 months made steady changes to my diet, decreasing the amount of carbs and increasing the proportion of protein foods, including more animal protein than I'd had for decades. For a big chunk of my life I was vegetarian or vegan, and I'd never gone back to eating much animal protein and I've always had a higher-than-average percentage of fresh vegetables and fruit in my diet.

Then 3 months ago I had my first attack of gout, and have now had 4 - despite medication and changes in my diet, cutting out all the high purine foods. So my diet is now much closer to what it was before the advice to change to a low-carb diet, and my HbA1c has gone from 47 to 48 (because as they keep blood testing me for the gout, they also repeat the HbA1c tests). My doctors are telling me not to worry at all about that amount increase in the context of the whole situation, and talking through the details of the diet changes I'd made, they all seem to agree it could be what's taken my uric acid levels up to the levels that have caused the gout.

For the broader picture, I have gout in the family, my BMI is 34, I've had an injury to the toe joint which was the first to have symptoms, and I've had a period of long-term stress. And I'm T2. All of those are relevant. There's a lot more to the whole picture than red meats and high sugars (fructose in particular).

I'd recommend the UK Gout Society website - there are good factsheets you can download. http://www.ukgoutsociety.org/ The NHS website's good for a basic level of information, but might not tell you enough (I think). http://www.nhs.uk/Conditions/Gout/Pages/Introduction.aspx If you want more in-depth information, the NICE Guidelines are good - you'll see why your doctors are giving you the treatment you're getting. https://cks.nice.org.uk/gout

Just beware any website linked to selling you anything!

 

[Resurgam]

Low carb is not necessarily high protein - you only need enough protein to maintain your body, otherwise it is changed into glucose. You can get the protein from any source which suits you, fish, chicken, eggs and so on.
To keep in ketosis you need to include natural fats, they keep the fat burning process going all the time.
I am pretty sure that I had gout in my foot but it was just before the local supermarket had loads of cheap cherries and I ate lots of them, and the pain went away. They are just over the 10 percent carbs level which is my normal cut off point, but cheap cherries at 10.5 percent carbs - plus a surprise vanishing of an ache - who could knock that?

 

[JenniferW]

... To keep in ketosis ...

Ketosis is specifically what I'm being advised not to get into. I do accept, though, that I'm dealing with a metabolic condition which is not responding straightforwardly to the treatments for gout. I'm afraid lots of cherries have had no impact on this at all. I wouldn't want to discourage anyone from doing that, but I wanted to flag up that there's not a one-size-fits-all solution to some of our conditions.

 

[librarising]

I used to suffer from gout in the years that preceded my diabetes diagnosis. Also having undiagnosed thyroid problems, I was often very tired and lacking in energy.I thought drinking cartons of fruit juice was the healthy thing to do. Over a few years attacks got worse and worse. Big toe would be red, swollen, and throbbing. NOTHING could come near ! Cue : extensive web surfing, which led to the discovery of this website
https://sites.google.com/site/icuredmygout/
which advocates the use of bicarbonate of soda as a cure. All I can say is that it worked for me. I stopped the fruit juice since fructose is a baddie for gout sufferers, and started taking the bicarb.
It sees gout as a response to a build-up of uric acid in whatever joints the body favours. Often toes, but also knees and other joints.
Gout is a form of arthritis, and sometimes called gouty arthritis.
The bicarbonate of soda, being an alkali, helps to neutralise your body's acidity.

I no longer suffer from gout.

Additional discovery ! As a preventative I would take a dose before bedtime, once or twice a week, whenever I remembered.
At some point it struck me that when I took some bedtime, I rarely had to get up in the night for the toilet. I now take it nightly and usually get an undisturbed night's sleep.
I did find some article at the time on PubMed (?) relating the need to get up in the night to the acidity of the bladder, so it makes sense.

Hope that helps

 

[walnut_face]

I use sodium bicarbonate to clean chrome! Used to suffer from gout, but not had a episode for nearly a year, which coincides with a LC diet, I still eat loads of red meat and drink Port!