Having A Low Purine Gout Diet Is Beneficial

To help improve the conditions of gout, one can consider trying out a low purine diet. Low purine gout diet place special emphasis on vegetable protein, dairy products, and water intake and completely abstaining from including high purine foods in the diet. Food items such as anchovies, bouillon, brains, broth, consume, dried legumes, goose, gravy, heart, herring, kidneys, liver, mackerel, meat extracts, mincemeat, mussels, partridge, roe, sardines, scallops, shrimp, sweetbreads, yeast (bakers and brewers), and yeast extracts (maramite, vegemite) need to be eliminated completely no matter how tempting and tasty these food might be from one's diet in order to prevent and treat gout:

Studies have shown that with the adoption of a low purine diet, the symptoms associated with gout decreases preventing the sudden and painful attacks of gout from occurring. Foods high in purines such as anchovies, brains, organ meats, sweetbreads, kidney, meat gravies, meat extracts, wild game, mackerel, scallops, herring, and sardines such be avoided when one is thinking of planning to have a low purine diet.

For a low purine or modified-purine diet, foods that contain only moderate amounts of purine and are allowed. Asparagus, cauliflower, legumes, lentils, mushrooms, oatmeal, peas (dried), soy, spinach, tripe, best bets, beverages (carbonated), butter, cereals and cereal products, cheese (all types), cocoa, corn, cornbread, eggs, fruit juices, fruits, gelatin, ice cream, milk, noodles, nuts, refined white flour, tapioca, vegetables (except those high in purine), white bread and crackers, and white rice are examples of food with a moderate amount of purine.

For most people who have experienced gout will usually use a purine-modified diet and avoid high purine foods in their daily diet to reduce the possibility of having more attacks of the gout. This low purine diet consists of eliminating extremely high purine foods such as liver, brains, kidney and other organ meats as well as sweetbreads.

In addition, only one serving of the following foods are allowed per day in order to avoid consuming too much purines: dried beans and peas, asparagus, cauliflower, spinach, mushrooms, poultry, meat or fish. In most of the prescribed treatment used today, a purine-modified diet is introduced for the treatment of gout. In a purine-modified diet, the doctor will only encourage the patients to consume some protein foods. However the patients will have to bear in mind not to exceed 100 grams of protein per day. As a rough guide, there are about 7 grams of protein in one ounce of meat and 3 grams of protein per serving of bread and grains. Studies have shown that dairy products such as milk, egg and cheese are good food choices for gout patients since they are low in purine but rice in protein. Consuming large amounts of these dairy products was found to reduce the risk of developing gout by 50%.

On top of having a correct and healthy diet, medications such as non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, corticosteroids and allopurinol are often prescribed by doctors together with the recommended diet to treat gout. There is no better form of treatment or prevention for gout other than drinking lots of water, eating lots of dairy products and vegetable proteins and abstaining from high purine food items.