“Seasonal” Gout?

Is Seasonal Gout on Your Mind Right Now?

We’re moving into the Fall season here in the Northern Hemisphere.  With the change of the seasons, many people feel like the weather causes gout attacks for them.  Some studies about the relationship of weather and gout have brought forward some interesting information about seasonal gout.

Are You Dealing with Seasonal Gout?

Have you found a correlation between your gout attacks and a particular season of the year, or a change in the weather?  Here at The Gout Killer Laboratory, (haha!) we’ve been using our interactions and responses to track what seems to cause gout, what helps the most, and what seems to work best to prevent gout attacks.   From anecdotal information over the past several hundred years, seasonal gout comes up a lot.

What is it about the different times of year that bring on gout?  Is it just that in the summertime, we barbecue burgers and hot dogs and party a lot and drink a lot of beer?  So we end up every Monday morning with a gout attack?   Does the chill of the winter cause our immune system to work harder and we burn up more nutritional resources that cause our ability to process proteins/purines correctly?  Or is it the change in the quality of the air in the Spring and Fall that create a shift in our respiration that changes our blood oxygen saturation for the worse?

Studies about Seasonal Gout

We found a couple of studies that had valuable information for people concerned with seasonal gout.  Temperature and humidity were the main focus of these studies.

In the first study, there were 632 subjects with gout and there was a significant relationship of the temperature forty-eight hours before the attack.  Higher than normal temperatures accounted for 40% of those incidences, and low humidity seemed to contribute as well.  Regardless of climate-controlled environments, the conclusion was that high temperature and extremes in humidity created the greatest risk for gout to attack.

Surprisingly enough, the second study of seasonal gout had 359 patients and discovered no appreciable difference of the incidence of gout between all of the seasons:

• Spring        32%
• Fall             25%
• Summer    23%
• Winter       20%

We found that to be profound as many of the interactions we have here at TGK seem to indicate that many people with gout believe that one season or another is a contributing factor for gout attacks.

Barometric Pressure and Seasonal Gout

From our November 1, 2014 post about seasonal gout, barometric pressure was front and center as a convincing factor for causing gout attacks.

Barometric or atmospheric pressure, is a somewhat of an abstract concept to understand.  To help shed some light on how it might have consequences in regard to how our body operates, here is an easy to understand video about it:

Barometric pressure is cited as the cause of many different health conditions; blood pressure problems, headaches, blood sugar regulation, and joint pain to name a few.  Although, there is no clear evidence from formal studies, here at TGK, we believe the “crush” of our atmospheric pressure plays some hand in how gout develops and becomes a problem for certain individuals from time to time.

☆ Remember:  Seasonal gout is very real and should be factored into your #killgout plan of prevention!