What Is Gout Disease?

To adequately address what gout disease is, it does not have to be cloaked in mystery as modern medicine seems to like to portray it. What gout disease is is best defined by one word: Acidosis. The disease of gout is simply an overly-acidic inner body condition due to temporary poor kidney function.

What is gout disease is a question that confuses many people. What causes gout pain is excess uric acid that has crystallized in given joint, often the joint at the base of the big toe. A gout attack is characterized by extreme redness, heat, swelling and inflammation, and most of all, excruciating pain.

Causes of Gout

Although most treatment for gout focuses on manipulating uric acid levels in the body, the true cause of gout is the kidneys inability to balance the pH of the body chemistry. Blood and urine tests typically give a snapshot of how much uric acid is in the fluids, but not an explanation for “what is gout?”, or remedy for why.

Acidosis

Uric acid that has been allowed to crystallize in a joint is the reason for the terrible pain of gout. Uric acid is produced by the body both by the breakdown of purines in foods (exogenous purines) and by natural and normal breakdown of purines made in the cells of the body (endogenous purines).

Uric acid becomes a problem when it becomes overly abundant in the bloodstream. The kidney and liver function is not properly processing and eliminating it. Taking measures to improve kidney and liver function as well as promoting greater alkalinity are the proper ways to address this overly acidic condition or, acidosis.

The alternative for the body to allow the kidneys time to regain proper function, is to crystallize the excess uric acid in one or many of the joints of the body – this is what gout disease is.

Blood Oxygen Saturation

Uric acid becomes excessive and therefore a problem due to several contributing factors; one being low blood oxygen saturation. Well understood by those struggling with sleep apnea, blood can become dangerously acidic with uric acid when episodes of halted breathing persist throughout the night.

This also explains why many people get attacks of gout in the night or wake up with them. Consistent awareness of breathing habits and measures to improve breathing and blood oxygen saturation is fundamental to curing gout.

Dehydration

Dehydration is also a major way that the inner body condition can become too acidic. The body is 75% water and constantly loses water by breathing, sweating, and excreting. When observed microscopically, sludge at the cellular level is created, and with stagnation, becomes acidic.

Diet

To understand what gout disease is, it is essential to recognize that diet and foods are only one of the causes of gout. While diet can be a major contributor, it is not the over-arching determining factor as to whether one gets gout or not.

In simple terms, foods are either alkaline-forming or acid-forming; fresh fruits and vegetables are alkaline-forming, while proteins like meats and beans are acid-forming. The human body needs both in the proper ratio; 80% alkaline-forming and 20% acid-forming.

Stress

Due to emotional and mental expenditure, the human body creates acidic chemistry in order to deal with the challenges of life. When constantly in a state of anxiety or turmoil, the inner body environment is far too exposed to acid-generating stress hormones like adrenaline and cortisol.

These are one more acidic substance that adds to the workload of the kidneys. When the kidneys are over-loaded, they don’t process the uric acid as well as they normally do.

Toxic Chemicals

In a similar way to the acidity of stress hormones, toxic environmental chemicals make their way into the inner body terrain, only to be dealt with by the kidneys. Again, when the kidneys are so inundated with managing so many different forms of acidity – including ones that the body does not recognize as fuel or nutrients – uric acid falls on the list of priorities.

Toxic environmental chemicals come in many harmless disguises; laundry detergents, cosmetics, household cleaners, inks, paints, solvents, and many more. Minute concentrations only accumulate over time and slowly degrade kidney and liver health.

Lack of Exercise and/or Sleep

It is well understood that in order to keep the systems of the body flowing consistently, movement is essential. Stagnation can take many forms throughout the body, and the need to keep the blood, lymph and all the other body fluids moving is commonsense – especially when it comes to truly understanding what gout disease is.

Sleep is also a commonsense requirement for managing gout. Just as mental and physical fatigue sets in, the internal organs like the liver and kidneys need time to rest, repair, and rejuvenate.

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Risk Factors for Gout

There are various contributing factors that can help to diagnose gout disease or to be forewarned of it. Below is a list of commonly indentified risk factors to be aware of to forestall gout or move health in a direction of reduced incidence.

Lifestyle

The choices of lifestyle follow the list of gout causes. Maintaining good breathing and hydration habits is top priority. Learning to moderate your diet with fresh foods and avoiding processed foods at all costs, is fundamental.

Smoking and drinking alcohol are obviously recognized as detrimental to health – gout disease is no exception.

Managing stress and avoiding toxic chemicals in the environment is of major importance when seeking to be free from gout. Consistent exercise and healthy habits that promote good sleep are essential.

If any of the areas mentioned above are poorly managed, gout is a very real threat.

Health Conditions

According to the National Center for Biotechnical Information, many people struggling with obesity, diabetes, high blood pressure and or heart disease are good candidates for developing gout disease. These critical diseases and many others share the same root cause of gout: An overly-acidic inner body terrain.

Pharmaceutical Medications

Diuretics common for those battling high blood pressure can also increase the risk of gout. Anyone undergoing an organ transplant that requires the use of anti-rejection drugs can be at increased risk of gout.

In general, all pharmaceutical and over the counter drugs serve to create an overly acidic inner body condition –even low doses of aspirin can raise uric acid levels.

Family History

While modern medical science scrambles to find a genetic cause for gout and create drugs to combat it, they still have little conclusive evidence. Family history of gout is just as likely to be habits passed on from one generation to another. Just because your father or grandfather had gout, doesn’t necessarily mean you are a predisposed victim of it.

Age and Sex

Just as we are seeing childhood obesity and earlier and earlier ages of people who have developed diabetes, the same is true of gout. With an unprecedented amount of poor quality, edible food-like substances entering the body, as well as synthetic chemicals in the air, water, and in contact with our skin, the first event of gout happens for many in their early twenties and even in their teens.

Men are more prone to gout than women, however women see a rise in blood uric acid levels after menopause due to a lowering of estrogen production.

Gout Treatment and Prevention

The various treatments for dealing with gout are broken down into two categories; allopathic medicine that treats the symptoms with pharmaceutical drugs, and natural holistic remedies that work to correct metabolic imbalances and the acidic root cause of the problem.

Allopathic Medicine

There are more new gout drugs being introduced to the market due to the sharp increase in reports of gout. There are two types of drugs for gout; xanthine oxidase inhibitors like allopurinol, and anti-inflammatory drugs like colchicine.

Allopurinol attempts to impede the production of uric acid.

Colchicine is the long-time gout standard and works to relieve inflammation, swelling and pain.  Another type of anti-inflammatory drugs, NSAIDs (non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs), is generic ibuprofen or indomethacin.

Holistic Treatments and Remedies

Gout disease is treated successfully with many combinations of diet, vitamins and minerals, herbs and topical treatments.

When different minerals are introduced to the body, the chemistry can change quickly and neutralize acidity to relieve swelling and pain. Some of these minerals are provided by specific food choices and can work as an immediate treatment or as a long-term preventative measure.

Herbal remedies can improve kidney and liver function and bring about lasting results. Topical treatments for gout like soaking the joints or applying poultices of herbal combinations can relieve pain and swelling.

 ☆ Remember!  What is gout disease?…the painful result of an overly-acidic inner body condition.