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Is Gout Caused by Red Meat or Metabolic Syndrome?

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Is Gout Caused by Red Meat or Metabolic Syndrome?ShareFollow us 261.1k

Quick Summary tl;dr

Owing to the effects of insulin on uric acid retention, people suffering from gout may want to try a low carb or ketogenic diet.

Contrary to conventional advice for this condition, there’s no need to avoid animal protein. If anything, evidence indicates that increasing protein intake could be beneficial for gout — as long as people also cut way back on carbs. Beyond a low carb way of eating, other strategies that improve insulin sensitivity may also help, such as getting adequate physical activity and good quality and quantity of sleep.

A word of caution: In the early stages of a very low-carb diet, individuals prone to gout flares may experience an increase in attacks. This is because ketones compete with uric acid for excretion. As the body excretes excess ketones in the first few days and weeks on a ketogenic diet, uric acid may accumulate in the body, potentially resulting in a gout attack. However, this is only temporary. The likelihood of gout attacks decreases over time, as the body becomes more efficient at utilizing ketones and uric acid is excreted normally.

Table of Contents

If you or someone you know suffers from gout, then you know what a painful condition it can be. If you don’t know what it’s like, imagine having broken glass embedded in your big toe, turning something as simple as walking into an excruciating endeavor.

Joints in the big toes aren’t the only ones affected in gout, but they’re typically the most common. Gout results from an abnormal buildup in the blood of a compound called uric acid. When uric acid concentration is high, it may precipitate or solidify into crystals, which accumulate in soft tissues, and this is what’s responsible for the pain associated with the condition.

The Conventional Approach

Gout has long been believed to result from a high intake of alcohol or animal protein. This is because a major source of uric acid is the breakdown of purines — a nitrogen-containing compound found in high concentrations in seafood, muscle meats, and organ meats. (There’s also a moderate amount of purines in protein-containing plant foods, such as beans, oats, wheat and peas.)

Is Gout Caused by Red Meat or Metabolic Syndrome?

For this reason, gout sufferers have traditionally been advised to avoid alcohol — especially beer — and follow a diet low in animal protein, particularly low in red meat. However, while some people experience relief by going this route, many others don’t, which suggests there’s something else behind this condition.

To see what that “something else” might be, it helps to look at things from an evolutionary perspective. If a high intake of animal protein caused gout — or was the primary cause, anyway — then our hunter-gatherer ancestors would have had too much joint pain to go chasing after yet more prey. So it makes sense to look for a different explanation for why so many people are afflicted with gout in the 21st Century. And what’s really the problem in this condition, anyway: do people with gout produce more uric acid, or is the problem with clearance of uric acid?

Incidence of gout has risen in concert with other disorders attributed to “Western” diets and lifestyles, such as type-2 diabetes and heart disease. Previous posts on the KetoDiet blog have explored chronically high insulin as a driving factor in PCOS, Alzheimer’s disease, and several other issues not typically associated with hyperinsulinemia, such as skin tags, erectile dysfunction, and migraines.

With this in mind, could gout be yet another condition driven by chronically elevated insulin?

The Epidemiology of Elevated Uric Acid and Gout

Epidemiology is getting a bad rap in the low carb and keto communities lately. Epidemiology is the branch of medical research that studies the incidence and prevalence of diseases in large populations.

It’s primarily observational in nature, rather than interventional. What this means is, epidemiology is a good place to start for generating ideas and formulating hypothesis, especially with regard to associations and connections between particular dietary elements and certain diseases, but until those ideas are tested in clinical trials, we can’t know for sure whether any of those dietary factors cause the diseases.

Since epidemiological findings can help frame the discussion, though, let’s start there. We’ll look at some statistics regarding incidence of metabolic syndrome, elevated uric acid, and gout, and then dig deeper to see whether there are plausible mechanisms to explain some of the findings.

Is Gout Caused by Red Meat or Metabolic Syndrome?

The Link Between Metabolic Syndrome and High Blood Uric Acid

There’s a strong correlation between metabolic syndrome and elevated blood levels of uric acid. Different sources list different cutoff points for defining a high blood uric acid level (called hyperuricemia), but 6.8 mg/dL is a common reference point ( 1). Other sources suggest ≥6 mg/dL for women and ≥7 mg/dL for men as defining hyperuricemia ( 2).

According to data from over 8000 people in the early 1990s, prevalence of metabolic syndrome was 18.9% for uric acid levels less than 6 mg/dL, 36.0% for uric acid levels from 6 to 6.9 mg/dL, 40.8% for uric acid levels from 7 to 7.9 mg/dL, 59.7% for uric acid levels from 8 to 8.9 mg/dL, 62.0% for levels from 9 to 9.9 mg/dL, and 70.7% for levels ≥ 10 mg/dL.

In other words, the higher the uric acid level, the greater the prevalence of metabolic syndrome. Stated more clearly, the higher someone’s uric acid level, the more likely they were to have metabolic syndrome ( 3).

What is Metabolic Syndrome?

The stereotypical metabolic syndrome patient is overweight or obese, but excess weight is definitely not required to be diagnosed with metabolic syndrome or gout. Metabolic syndrome — which is rooted in chronic hyperinsulinemia — may be driving gout even in people with a “normal” body weight.

Among people with a normal body mass index (BMI), those with a uric acid level < 6 mg/dL had a prevalence of metabolic syndrome of just 5.9%, compared to a whopping 59.0% among those with a uric acid level ≥ 10 mg/dL — ten times as high! Another study estimates that up to 76% of patients with gout have metabolic syndrome ( 3, 4).

How Many People Are Affected by Hyperuricemia?

According to data gathered from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES), about 49 million people had a serum uric acid concentration > 6mg/dL, and nearly 12% (almost 20 million people) had a uric acid level > 7mg/dL.

Using the NHANES III definition of hyperuricemia (serum uric acid > 7.0 mg/dL for men and > 5.7 mg/dL for women), the prevalence of hyperuricemia is around 18%, which translates into 30.5 million people in the US. These aren’t small numbers. Clearly, elevated uric acid is a very common issue.

High Uric Acid Doesn’t Always Cause Gout

Before we go assuming there’s a gout epidemic, though, it should be noted that elevated uric acid isn’t always a problem. Not everyone with a high uric acid level will experience gout attacks. As many as two-thirds of people with elevated uric acid remain asymptomatic. It’s important to note, though, that they might not have any signs or symptoms of gout, but that doesn’t mean they’re free of other cardiometabolic diseases driven by hyperinsulinemia ( 5).

So even if someone doesn’t have gout, elevated uric acid levels can be considered a “warning sign” of metabolic trouble that could eventually manifest elsewhere in the body. And the truth is, there is a strong relationship between high uric acid and development of gout ( 6).

What Causes Elevated Uric Acid?

There are two possible causes of hyperuricemia:

  1. people over-produce uric acid
  2. uric acid excretion is impaired — that is, the body isn’t able to get rid of it properly

Only about 10% of cases of hyperuricemia are caused by overproduction of uric acid; the other 90% result from impaired excretion.

The kidneys are the primary players in uric acid excretion, so anything that affects healthy kidney function can interfere with clearance of uric acid. Older age tends to be a factor, and several commonly used medications impair uric acid clearance, such as low-dose aspirin, thiazides or loop diuretics, and cyclosporine A (an immunosuppressant used for rheumatoid arthritis, psoriasis, Crohn’s disease, and dry eyes).

Other than that, the major influence on renal uric acid excretion is insulin.

Elevated Insulin Inhibits Uric Acid Excretion

More and more research indicates gout is related to chronically high insulin levels. As discussed in the KetoDiet post on hyperinsulinemia, insulin is far more than just a “blood sugar hormone.” High insulin has powerful effects on kidney function ( 7). Hypertension is one result, coming from the kidneys retaining more sodium in the blood, and hyperuricemia is another, because the kidneys hold on to more uric acid, rather than filtering it out into the urine ( 8).

Gerald Reaven, MD, who coined the term “syndrome X” and was one of the first doctors to identify insulin as the underlying factor in metabolic syndrome, observed hyperuricemia and hypertension in insulin resistance and called the kidneys “an unwilling accomplice” in hyperinsulinemia more than 20 years ago ( 9). Perhaps this explains why hypertension and gout so often occur together ( 10). Some researchers speculate that one causes the other, but it’s more likely that a third factor — high insulin — causes both.

Bottom line: High insulin leads to high uric acid, and high uric acid often leads to gout.

This is likely why many people who reduce their intake of animal protein and alcohol often experience no relief from gout. Just as with sodium and blood pressure, it’s not the consumption of dietary purines that results in gout, but rather, the buildup of uric acid. And since elevated insulin is what causes the body to retain uric acid, the most effective long-term solution isn’t to decrease purine intake, but to decrease insulin.

Dietary Factors and Gout

Alcohol Consumption

Alcohol intake may contribute to gout, and it appears to do so in a dose-dependent manner — meaning, the higher the alcohol intake, the greater the risk for gout. Beer increases risk more than distilled spirits or hard liquor, likely because beer is higher in purines. Wine lovers rejoice: wine consumption hasn’t been shown to increase risk for gout ( 11).

Animal Protein

Aside from alcohol, animal protein is believed to be the biggest dietary contributor to gout. In a study of over 47,000 male health professionals, risk of gout was 40-50% higher in those who consumed the most red meat or seafood compared to those who consumed the least of these. However, this association may very well have been eclipsed if the researchers had asked about intake of sugars and refined carbs.

Is it the animal protein leading to gout, or is it the carbs also present in the diet, and the insulin load they induce? A high protein intake in the absence of refined carbs might have a very different effect on uric acid levels and gout than a high or even moderate protein intake combined with a lot of carbs. We’ll explore this in detail, but first, let’s look at another contributing factor that’s a large part of the modern diet.

Fructose

Increasing evidence indicates that gout may be related to consumption of large amounts of fructose ( 12). Fructose was long believed to be a “safe” sugar for diabetics because it doesn’t raise blood glucose or stimulate insulin to the same degree that glucose and sucrose (table sugar) do. In fact, decades ago, candies and snack foods that were formulated to contain more fructose than glucose were marketed as being helpful for diabetics specifically for this reason.

However, even though fructose doesn’t seem to have immediate effects on insulin, chronic exposure — that is, consuming a lot of it on a regular basis over a long period of time — may indirectly cause elevated insulin levels ( 13).

Is Gout Caused by Red Meat or Metabolic Syndrome?

So while fructose doesn’t have the same acute effect that glucose has on insulin secretion, over time — decades, say, of consuming fruit juice, sugar-sweetened soft drinks, and high-sugar snack foods — fructose could play a role in the development of insulin resistance.

This is believed to result from the effects of fructose on the liver, which is second only to the pancreas in importance for maintaining healthy blood sugar levels. (Consuming too much fructose may, over time, result in the buildup of fat in the liver [“fatty liver”], which interferes with the liver’s ability to regulate blood sugar.) Fructose doesn’t stimulate insulin secretion in the short term, but animal studies show that long-term fructose feeding induces insulin resistance and obesity ( 14).

Ironically, people who adopt a vegetarian diet in hopes of alleviating gout may find that the opposite happens, at least if they consume a lot of fructose. Increasing fruit or fruit juice intake could exacerbate gout, especially when combined with a high-carb diet in general.

Protein, Gout, and Ketogenic Diets

Since protein-rich foods are the main source of purines, on the surface, it makes sense to reduce protein intake in order to reduce the severity of gout. Ketogenic and low carb diets aren’t “high” in protein, but because carbs are so low, for many people, going keto or low carb results in an increase in total protein intake compared to when they followed a higher carb diet.

It’s possible to do a vegetarian keto diet, but most people who go keto get the bulk of their protein from animal sources. Conventional wisdom would predict that this would result in more gout attacks. But is this what actually happens?

Do Low Carb Diets Increase Frequency of Gout Attacks?

On the contrary, higher protein diets that are a bit lower in carbs have been shown to reduce uric acid levels and gout attacks.

Epidemiological evidence suggests higher protein intakes — including animal protein — are not associated with increased risk of gout. According to a paper from The New England Journal of Medicine, “High-protein diets are associated with increased urinary uric acid excretion and may reduce the blood uric acid level.” (15)

Intake of meat and seafood did seem to have an association with incidence of gout, but purine-rich vegetables and dairy proteins had no such association. In fact, according to the researchers, “The level of consumption of purine-rich vegetables and the total protein intake were not associated with an increased risk of gout,” and “the incidence of gout decreased with increasing intake of dairy products.”

There’s a lot of noise here to sort through in order to find a signal, but one thing that comes through loud and clear is that protein intake, per se, doesn’t seem to increase risk for gout.

Is Gout Caused by Red Meat or Metabolic Syndrome?

Low Carb Diets and Gout

There isn’t much research on strict ketogenic diets and gout, but studies have been done employing diets that are lower in carbs than a typical Western diet.

In a small study of overweight or obese subjects, a high-protein diet — actually referred to by name as the Atkins diet — resulted in dramatic decreases in serum uric acid (16). Beyond this result, participants also experienced a mean weight loss of about 7 kg (around 15 pounds), a 46 mg/dL drop in triglycerides, and a 7.7 µU/mL reduction in fasting insulin. The study authors noted, “the Atkins diet (i.e., a high protein diet without calorie restriction) can reduce SUA [serum uric acid] levels despite substantial purine loading.”

Another study involved 13 overweight men with gout ( 17). The intervention diet called for 1600 calories, made up of 40% carbohydrate (from complex carbs, while avoiding refined), and 30% each protein and fat.

A 40% carbohydrate diet isn’t ketogenic, and it’s not even really “low carb,” but it may have been a significant decrease in carbs compared to what the subjects were eating before, and 30% protein was likely a proportional increase, if not an absolute one.

After 16 weeks on the diet, the men lost weight, had increases in HDL and decreases in triglycerides, and most important, had reduced uric acid levels and reduced frequency of gout attacks. Before the study, mean gout attack frequency was 2.1 per month, which dropped to 0.6 at the end of the study — including a few subjects who had zero attacks. So, even just reducing carbs somewhat, without going fully keto, was beneficial for gout. (See image below.)

Is Gout Caused by Red Meat or Metabolic Syndrome?

Following a 30% protein diet for 16 weeks resulted in decreased serum uric acid and frequency of gout attacks in 13 men who experienced at least two gout attacks during the four months prior to the study. (Source:  Dessein P, et al, 2000.)

In noting that dietary advice for people with gout typically calls for limiting protein and encouraging “the unlimited use of several food substances high in carbohydrate,” the authors of this study concluded, “Current dietary recommendations for gout may need re-evaluation.” ( 18) (In the interest of full disclosure, subjects in this study were also instructed to substitute saturated fat with monounsaturated fat, and to consume fish [as a source of polyunsaturated fat] at least four times a week. So the dietary fat sources were changed too, not just the amount and type of carbohydrate.)

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Amy Berger, MS, CNS, NTP
Certified Nutrition Specialist and Nutritional Therapy Practitioner

Amy Berger

Amy Berger, MS, CNS, NTP, is a U.S. Air Force veteran, Certified Nutrition Specialist and Nutritional Therapy Practitioner who specializes in using low-carbohydrate nutrition to help people reclaim their vitality through eating delicious foods, and showing them that getting and staying well doesn't require starvation, deprivation, or living at the gym.

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This article was written by Amy Berger, MS, CNS, NTP who is a qualified expert. At KetoDiet we work with a team of health professionals to ensure accurate and up-to-date information. You can find out more on the About us page.

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Comments (17)

Not sure if you are aware but the population of the U.S. is just over 328 Million as of 2019, so I came across a gross error in the following section of your article:
"According to data gathered from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES), nearly one-third of the entire US population — about 49 million people — had a serum uric acid concentration > 6mg/dL, and nearly 12% (almost 20 million people) had a uric acid level > 7mg/dL."
49 million is not one-third of 328 million.  Not sure what other errors are here, but this is enough to arrest my attention to this material though I agree very much with the principal of carb overload and SAD leading to illness of all kinds.
How Many People Are Affected by Hyperuricemia?

Thanks for catching that, Sharon.  That *is* a big difference. Not sure how I managed that/ We'll correct this when we can.

Great article, thank you!

Thanks, Esmee! You must be happy with the carnivorous way of eating getting so much more attention these days.  😊

Was half interested in this article but became very interested with all the connections to other medical issues. Had a lot of wows! When I finished it I thought what an unusually well written article. Then I saw it was written by Amy Berger of course. Thank you Amy!

😄  Thanks, Mary!
I love knowing that people find my posts educational. I've even considered getting into teaching at a community college...maybe Basic Intro to Nutrition, or even one of those continuing education courses for adults, where it's just for personal enrichment, and not for credit or for a degree.

Let me just say that I had MANY symptoms of PCOS before I was 13 years of age. There seems to be a question on what causes PCOS and that being over weight and diabetics are some of the causes. The PCOS was definitely what was first. I always had long blonde hair on my face and belly when I was only  or 9 years old. I'm don't think that what you said in this is true between the PCOS and gout.

Thanks for reading, Katherine.
I didn't say chronically high insulin was the only factor in PCOS, just a driving/major one.
And I've written about PCOS elsewhere, and have specifically mentioned that about 50% of women with PCOS are not overweight, so I'm aware that overweight/obesity is not the cause.
And plenty of people have high insulin but are not overweight. Millions of people have metabolic syndrome even though they're at a "normal" weight (whatever that even is!). Not everyone with high insulin becomes overweight. Many do, but not all. Chronically high insulin manifests in many, many ways, only one of which, in some people, is accumulation of body fat.
But yes, PCOS may happen for other reasons. I didn't mean to offend you.

I am loving the Keto WOE. I had my chemistry panel done this month and not only did my uric acid go from 11.1 to 5.9 (normal range), but I haven't had a gout flare-up in almost a year. And I can again eat the seafood I had given up because I thought I had to in order to keep my levels down. A bonus was my triglycerides went from 311 to 184 and my LDL went from 148 to 77 - normal range!

NICE! Really fabulous -- but not surprising -- results.  😄  KUTGW! This is GREAT.

I disagree with some of this information. The issue comes down to the Calcium/Magnesium/Phosphorous balance in the body, toxins in the liver and the liver's ability to detoxify the body.  If there is an overload of toxins that the body is trying to cope with then that adds additional stress to the kidneys.  Having done specialized labs on myself and finding a high Uric Acid its due to the Ketogenic Diet helping me to detox but also a challenged liver and now kidneys.  I'm not giving up my Ketogenic diet nor am I going to go Vegetarian.  I have added liver detox, binders to absorb the toxins from my gut and now upping my kidney support.  The ketogenic diet has been helpful to me and as I read more about it and try to follow it more closely it has helped tremendously.  There's alot more to gout that is complex but finding the cause for me is helping as it has clients I work with.  Sometimes its not as simple as some people make it out to be.  We can't forget the environmental toxins that are overwhelming our bodies and require us to also focus on this aspect.  Its harder for the "senior" folks like myself and much easier when I work with younger people.  They tend to clear things easier and faster IF (and that's a big if) they are willing to look at all aspects of their lifestyle.  

I may be missing something but what exactly do you disagree with? Are you saying keto makes gout worse in your case? I'm sorry if this is clear I'm just trying to make sense of everything. Could it be that you are eating too much protein? Did you have elevated uric acid before or only after keto?

I'm sorry but as soon as I hear the word "detox" I run. Our bodies are very good at getting rid of toxins no matter what you eat. Toxins don’t build up in your body, not even in your liver and kidneys and you’re not going to get rid of them by following any diet. The best way to support liver function to detoxify is to eat a variety of nutrient dense foods.

Since my husband was plagued with gout (familial in origin, I believed then), I burned up the internet to find a way to tone it down, stop it, reverse it, whatever.  We tried many things, including meds.
Over time, I found that his problem was not just metabolic in nature, but (more broadly) a pH thing.  We found that alkalinizing foods did the trick.  Lemon juice in the salad dressing, extra doses of calcium in the evening as well as the morning, more dairy in the diet, etc.  So what was in his diet that was so acidic?  SUGAR--acidic and the root cause of metabolic syndrome.  We got control of his blood sugar, and lo and behold, the gout disappeared.  No more jumping through "alkalinizing foods" hoops.  
You wouldn't believe the amounts of red meat we eat around here, because chickens are fed grains, and that sends our blood sugar through the roof, not to mention me being allergic to it.  We eat beef, pork, lamb, and more beef, pork, and lamb.  Not much fish, though--he's allergic to it.  We supplement with calamari oil to make up for it.

Nice! Thanks for the comment. This must be why commentor Marion's husband gets benefits from the tart cherry juice -- possibly the alkalinizing effects. Good to hear that going low carb has made the gout disappear, though -- even with a high intake of red meat. This is proof of what I wrote about in this post. Thanks again.

My husband has gout with high uric acid levels. He uses tart montmorency cherries and 100% red tart cherry juice daily forgout control. It seems to work for about 6 months and then the gout flares again with the need for steroid injections.i would think the cherrys would increase fuctose levels tremendously, but why does it work?

Hi Marion,
I've heard of people using tart cherry juice for kidney stones as well (besides gout). If he's not consuming a large amount of it, the fructose might not be so bad. I would have to look up the details to remind myself of what the specific compound is, but if I recall correctly, there's a compound in tart cherry (and a few select other foods) that helps reduce/inhibit the crystalization of uric acid, which would explain why it helps gout. The better way to go, in my opinion, would be a low carb diet, but if he finds the cherry juice is noticeably effective/beneficial, then I would never suggest someone stop something that is actively helping them.  Interesting that his flares always come back though, eh?  😉