My best friend was diagnosed with gout recently. I told him to stop ingesting fructose immediately.

Only twenty five years ago, when I was in training, gout looked like it was like a disease on its way to extinction, sort of like tuberculosis. We were taught it used to be common hundreds of years ago but that it was pretty rare. Sure, I had a few patients with gout in my clinic with gout but I would see a case once every couple of months at most.

Now, it’s exploded in frequency.

Gout is very, very bad. Not only because it is excruciatingly painful. (In some patients, you can’t even let a gouty big toe brush against tissue paper without unbearable pain. It’s one of the few things that may rival childbirth in the intensity of pain.) And not only because it is a major risk factor for heart disease. Not only because it causes heart disease. No, it’s very bad because your risk of dying goes up by 25% if you have gout. Continue reading “Gout and Cardiovascular Disease” →