This can lead to a disease called gout that causes painful joints that accumulate urate crystals. It can also make your blood and urine too acidic. You can limit the source of uric acid in your diet.
Purine-rich foods include some types of meat, seafood, and vegetables. Find tips for following a low-purine diet here. While uric acid is usually linked to protein-rich foods, recent studies show that sugar may also be a potential cause. Added sugars to food include table sugar, corn syrup, and high fructose corn syrup, among others.
The sugar fructose is a main type of simple sugar in processed and refined foods. Researchers have found that this type of sugar in particular could lead to high levels of uric acid. Check food labels for added sugars. Eating more whole foods and fewer refined packaged foods can also help you cut out sugars while allowing you to intake a more wholesome diet.
Sugary drinks , soda, and even fresh fruit juices are concentrated with fructose and glucose-containing sugar. This is similar to the ratio of 50 percent fructose and 50 percent glucose in table sugar. Fructose from refined sugar in juice or other foods is absorbed faster than sugar from foods that have a natural makeup that need to be broken down in your body. The faster absorption of refined sugars spikes your blood sugar levels and also leads to higher amounts of uric acid.
Replace sugary drinks with filtered water and fiber-rich smoothies. Drinking plenty of fluids helps your kidneys flush out uric acid faster.
Keep a water bottle with you at all times. Set an alarm every hour to remind you to take a few sips. Drinking alcohol can make you more dehydrated. It can also trigger high uric acid levels. This happens because your kidneys must first filter out products that occur in the blood due to alcohol instead of uric acid and other wastes.
Along with your diet, extra pounds can raise uric acid levels. Fat cells make more uric acid than muscle cells.
These include gout, a form of arthritis. In this article, we list the typical low, normal, and high levels of uric acid for males and females. We also explain what health conditions a person may develop from having high or low levels. Having some uric acid in the blood is normal. However, if uric acid levels go above or below a healthy range, this can result in health problems. High uric acid levels can increase the risk of gout.
It is unusual to have low uric acid levels, but it is possible if a person passes too much uric acid out of their body as waste. The following table gives low, normal, and high levels of uric acid in the blood. Purines are chemical substances that occur naturally in the body and in some foods. When the body breaks down purines, this creates uric acid as a waste product. The kidneys filter it from the blood and pass it out of the body in the urine. However, uric acid can sometimes build up in the blood.
The medical term for this is hyperuricemia. It can occur if the body produces too much uric acid or does not get rid of enough of it. Too much uric acid in the blood can lead to crystals forming in the joints and tissues, which may cause inflammation and gout symptoms. The causes of high uric acid levels are not always clear.
However, genetics and environmental factors, such as diet and health, both play a part. Risk factors for hyperuricemia include:. Some medical conditions and treatments are also associated with high uric acid levels, particularly gout , cancer treatment, and kidney disease.
Gout is a form of arthritis. The symptoms come and go, usually affecting just one joint. In people with this condition, uric acid builds up in the joints and tissues, causing pain, swelling, and discoloration. Test results may vary depending on your age, gender, health history, the method used for the test, and other things. Your test results may not mean you have a problem.
Ask your healthcare provider what your test results mean for you. You may have too much uric acid in your blood hyperuricemia if your results are:. Your uric acid levels may be high if you eat foods high in purines.
These include organ meats, dried beans and peas, and fish such as anchovies, herring, sardines, and mackerel. High levels can also be caused by a low-salt diet. The test is done with a blood sample. A needle is used to draw blood from a vein in your arm or hand.
Having a blood test with a needle carries some risks. These include bleeding, infection, bruising, and feeling lightheaded. When the needle pricks your arm or hand, you may feel a slight sting or pain. Afterward, the site may be sore. Foods high in purines, including organ meats, mushrooms, some types of fish and seafood, and dried peas and beans.
Gout is one of the oldest recorded diseases, with accounts dating back to ancient Egypt. This incredibly painful arthritis affects millions of U. Thomas Sydenham in the 17th century:. Fortunately, today gout is one of the most treatable forms of arthritis — some rheumatologists say it can be cured.
But for too many patients with gout, the disease goes untreated or undertreated. In one recent study , for example, only 37 percent of people with gout were taking the uric acid-lowering medication allopurinol; among gout patients with frequent flares, only half were taking it.
Improperly treating gout can cause the disease to become more progressive. Over time, gout can begin to affect more joints throughout the body and cause problems like gout tophi and permanent bone damage.
Find out more here about how gout develops, how gout progresses through different stages, and how to treat gout to prevent symptoms , lower uric acid levels, and prevent long-term gout complications.
Also called asymptomatic hyperuricemia, in this beginning stage of gout, uric acid is building up in the blood and starting to form crystals around joints, most often in the foot. Uric acid is created when your body breaks down substances called purines, which are produced in your body and can also be found in certain foods and drinks.
While eating high-purine foods can contribute to high uric acid levels, many experts believe that the role of diet in the development of gout is over-emphasized.
Identifying uric acid crystals in joint fluid helps confirm a gout diagnosis. After a first gout flare , 75 percent of people will have a second within a year; but some people can go years before another attack, says Dr. Even though it may seem like nothing is happening, this is the point in which patients should begin long-term treatment. Lowering uric acid levels with medication can prevent future gout flares and long-term complications that go with them. But tophi can form anywhere in the body.
Fields says. During this stage, progressive joint damage develops, so patients with gout should be treated before this starts happening.
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