In this week’s podcast, we discuss how the ketogenic diet can help cure gout. Gout is a build up of uric acid in the blood. Once uric acid gets too a high enough point in the blood, it precipitates out into the soft tissues throughout our body, usually in the hands and feet. The classic spot is the big toe! This can be extremely painful and debilitating for people suffering a gout flair up.
It’s common knowledge amongst physicians that gout is caused by uric acid. But where does uric acid come from? It comes from something called purines. There are multiple sources of purines, however, this has caused many doctors to blame purines from protein-rich foods like red meat for gout flair ups, causing them to recommend a low purine diet for the management of gout. This is not a good recommendation or method to lower uric acid in the blood! Research shows that a diet low in purines is ineffective at lowering uric acid levels. Uric acid gets elevated to a harmful point when our kidneys stop excreting adequate amounts of uric acid. What’s the signal telling our kidneys to reabsorb uric acid instead of excreting it? Insulin! Our kidneys can excrete a lot of uric acid when they don’t get the cue from insulin to reabsorb it.
Insulin is the hormone that gets elevated when you eat carbohydrates. Chronically elevated insulin, called hyperinsulinemia, and insulin resistance are the true drivers of gout, not protein-rich foods! To learn why insulin drives gout, not meat, listen to this week’s podcast.
Links To Studies Mentioned
