Fructose poses gout risks even in women
Janet Raloff writes in Science News:
Women don’t develop gout — an arthritic condition prone to excruciatingly painful flare-ups — at nearly the same rate as men. But as in men, its incidence has been creeping up in women, according to a new report. Also as in men, a second new report finds, fructose-sweetened beverages appear to pose a particularly potent gout risk for women.
Potentially aggravating this trend: New data indicate that sweetened soft drinks appear to be a richer source of fructose than had been assumed.
The new data signal a dietary trend that can trigger pain and can potentially cripple joints — but is avoidable, says Martin Underwood of the University of Warwick Medical School in Coventry, England, who is unaffiliated with the new studies. Moreover, he adds, gout’s growing incidence potentially points to an even bigger threat because studies have begun to point to gout as an independent risk factor for cardiovascular disease.
Gout develops when the blood becomes saturated with uric acid, a breakdown product of purines, which are a constituent of many foods, especially red and organ meats. When uric acid precipitates out into the joints and crystallizes, intense pain develops. Researchers consider severely elevated uric acid levels in blood, or hyperuricemia, a silent indicator of gout.
At the American College of Rheumatology meeting in Atlanta, Hyon Choi of the Boston University School of Medicine and his colleagues reported November 9 that incidence of hyperuricemia increases with age and now afflicts some 31 percent of U.S. adults 65 and older — an estimated 8.4 million people. Their data came from the most recent National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, which interviewed and took health measurements from more than 24,000 adults selected to offer a representative cross section of Americans.
Women seldom develop gout pain prior to menopause, because female sex hormones help keep uric acid levels low, notes Choi. But after menopause, women’s risk of the disease rises to about half of the rate in older U.S. men, he reports.
Over the past decade, Choi’s team has uncovered a host of gout triggers. Two years ago, for instance, he and Gary Curhan of Harvard Medical School linked risk of the disease in men with elevated consumption of fructose — a principal sugar in fruit that is present in all sugar-sweetened beverages. It made sense, the researchers pointed out, since fructose independently triggers the body’s production of uric acid from adenosine triphosphate, a molecule that stores and transports energy.
At a November 10 presentation at the rheumatology meeting, Choi, Curhan and Walter Willett of the Harvard School of Public Health now extend fructose’s gout risk to women…
