Gout #1, The Cause of Gout

Recently I met with a rheumatology doctor from a large hospital who informed me that a large percentage of the population is taking allopurinol for life, to avoid the pain of gout. Gout is often a side effect of the other pills that people take in their allopathic quest for “health” (really absence of symptoms) and apparently, gout is an epidemic in this current period of toxic and nutrient deficient foods.

So what is the medical profession's opinion of gout?
The doctors have a script, a story, which they do not deviate from. Uric acid is a side effect of the breakdown of purines, which are found in meat, seafood and other proteins. Therefore, avoid protein and you will not experience gout (yeah, that’s sustainable!). However, there are some who have a genetic disposition for overproduction of uric acid, and so even avoiding these bad foods (for gout), you need a lifetime supply of allopurinol, which works by blocking the production of uric acid in the body. Once started though, beware, a day of missed treatment may lead to an almost sure gout attack. (Although the current treatment is predominately allopurinol there are also other treatments such as drugs to help the excretion of uric acid.)

At one time I read as many medical papers as I could find on the Science Direct database. Large food studies find no relationship between high protein foods and the incident of gout, often finding no evidence of a higher incidence of gout from any food habits. One very large study only found that more dairy products led to a lower incident of gout. Clearly, there is no evidence for the medical professions stories concerning gout, and I have found the medical profession’s lists of foods to eat and foods to avoid are completely without merit, and foods are a 50-50 proposition in either list.

So what is the cause of gout? I have made food notebooks and tried to track down the deviant evil foods for many years. Now, I can say, the only thing I have to worry about with regards to gout is whether I am losing weight or putting on weight. If I am losing weight or fasting, then gout is a very real possibility. If I am putting on weight then I can guarantee that I will not be thinking of gout or in any danger of gout. My experience is not the only experience I have heard off. I read that Jared Leto, a young actor in his 20s, experienced gout from dramatic weight loss when he quickly worked off the weight from a movie role as Mark David Chapman (and got an Oscar for losing even more weight in Dallas Buyers Club, 2013).

I say, now, as the weight gain/loss was not always the only determinant when I was a frequent user of alcohol and very overweight. Then gout could strike at any time. However, my experiments at this time led to a very interesting observation. When I felt the tingling in my foot that preceded a gout attack, I discovered that that I could delay the attack for maybe a few days by drinking a couple of beers. A real homeopathic relief? It is obvious that beer is the worst food for gout (particularly these days, who knows what poisons are added), so why did taking beer delay and push back the gout attack? Also, gout hardly ever struck immediately after a heavy drinking session, but often would strike 3 or 4 days afterwards while a recovery was underway. Later, when I was doing everything correctly and exercising, eating the correct foods (see later blog articles), and losing weight, I would be struck with gout that lasted weeks.

So these observations got me thinking about the role of the body and its influence on the timing of the gout attack. Clearly, a warrior cannot afford a gout attack on the battlefield or while bleeding from wounds. However, the warrior can afford a gout attack after the magnificent feast at the celebration of victory in battle, and a feast is certainly a well-known gout trigger. This led to an idea that the timing of the gout attack was actually being chosen by the body, when there were appropriate nutrients available and the “toxin tank” was getting close to full. When new toxins were introduced the body backed off the gout attack, instead dealing with the new toxins. Three factors are required for this proposition to be credible: uric acid is performing some vital detoxing function; the body can store toxins for later processing; and, the body is not a stupid machine, but possesses some degree of “intelligence”.

On the first point, from the medical literature I discovered that uric acid is actually the body’s most powerful antioxidant, some hundreds of times more effective than vitamin C. In fact, uric acid appears to be the body’s main “workhorse” antioxidant. This is clearly a warning to all those on the allopurinol lifetime treatment. Is an increased risk of cancer part of the trade-off in using allopurinol?

Second, I considered the question: why did drinking make me fat? It wasn’t the calories from the alcohol, as these days were often low calorie days. However, after a drinking session, I would crave carbohydrates and foods high in msg like KFC and other fast food products: craving not only bad foods, but lots of them. My body had an insatiable appetite to make fat cells. Why? The explanation that best seemed to explain these observations were that the body must be storing toxic substances in the new created fat cells.

Third, the body must not be a simple minded machine, but has a more intelligent role in gout attacks. Of this, I am sure for many reasons. So now a theory began to develop. Overwhelmed by lots of nasty toxic substances the body instead put some into storage, to be processed later under more favourable conditions. A delay results between the consumption of bad foods and the gout attack. This delay breaks any causal time dependent link on cause and effect and has confused doctor and patient through the ages. In fact, foods that trigger gout attacks (e.g. fish, asparagus, liver) are most likely very beneficial foods that supply the body with needed nutrients to process the stored toxins in the fat cells.Thus, good foods are more likely to trigger a gout attack, while bad foods like beer delay a gout attack.

Once I went through a healing crisis (major detox) I found a strong relationship: gout attacks would occur when I was eating correctly, and once I started to lose weight quickly. In fact, (my untreated) gout was instrumental in amazing weight loses since I would fast for long periods of time. All the good things that were healing my body and eliminating toxins from fat cell storage were associated with gout.

Of course, there must be exceptions, for the world is not as simple as a model. Getting a hit of something very toxic like mercury may directly lead to a gout attack, but only something exceptional. Say major sleep deprivation, writing about gout, being slipped the mickey like methamphetamine/P or a pharmaceutical, or an encounter with a vampirism energy drain, to name some likely exceptions.

The mechanism of the body choosing the timing of gout attacks makes statistical study of gout incidence and foods impossible except over long periods of time, and then controlling for lagged effects is implausibly difficult. Using a simple instantaneous cause and effect model, will confuse the good young scientist that decides to apply some rigorous personal observation to their gout condition.

Once I had this understanding that the body was choosing the gout attack timing which gave rise to an opposite cause and effect reaction, observations began to make sense. I relooked over my food diaries and weights. I also had some observations that came from my stomach and other methods (more in later blog articles). Without a doubt, the number one long term cause of gout was carbohydrates/alcohol, and processed foods. Later I came to believe that a wrong reaction to stress was the main reason why I consumed alcohol and sugar/carbohydrate/fast foods in the first place. Therefore, going one layer deeper, not correctly handling stress was the primarily cause of my gout. (I will explain in more detail in future blog articles).

But here is the really amazing unexpected factor you should consider carefully, particularly if you rush for the medicine cabinet at the first onset of gout pain (see Gout #2 for a description of the role of pain and pain killers). The gout and its pain taught me the discipline of eating, and really, gout was the cure for bad consumption habits (more in later blogs). The “dis-ease” of gout itself was the cure.

The bottom line of this article: Natural non-poisoned and unprocessed foods that trigger gout attacks should not be avoided but eventually added to the diet. This is due to the reverse cause and effect relationship between foods and gout that is generated by the intelligent actions of the body. This way of thinking resolved a lot of my past confusion has worked well enough that, currently, I have no thought of changing it.

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Notes: Homeopathy versus Allopathy (see definitions below)

The “cure” of adding gout trigger foods like seafood to the diet appears to be Homeopathic (see definition below). This is not the case. It is, instead, treatment of the underlying problem. Further, the disease of gout is actually the healing process! The confusion is caused by the contrarian cause and effect that is generated by the intelligent actions of the human body. This type of inverse cause and effect is found in many systems where intelligence is part of the system, such as the financial markets. For example, “buy the rumour, sell the news” is a Wall Street axiom that explains why good news for a firm can often “cause” a sell-off in the stock price. Once the “good” news is public the more knowledgeable investors who bought before the news was made public, sell to the public at higher prices, which can lead to reduction in price after the release of the good news. This generates an inverse reaction to good news and stock prices.

The provision of pain killers, on the other hand, only suppresses the symptoms and interferes with the healing process.


From Wikipedia (April 2014):


Homeopathy i/ˌhoʊmiˈɒpəθi/ (also spelled homoeopathy or homœopathy; from the Greek ὅμοιος hómoios "like-" and πάθος páthos "suffering") is a system of alternative medicine created in 1796 by Samuel Hahnemann, based on his doctrine of like cures like, according to which a substance that causes the symptoms of a disease in healthy people will cure similar symptoms in sick people.[1] Homeopathic remedies are found to be no more effective than a placebo,[2] and homeopathy is widely considered a pseudoscience.[3][4][5][6][7]

Hahnemann believed that the underlying causes of disease were phenomena that he termed miasms, and that homeopathic remedies addressed these. The remedies are prepared by repeatedly diluting a chosen substance in alcohol or distilled water, followed by forceful striking on an elastic body.[8] Dilution usually continues well past the point where no molecules of the original substance remain.[9] Homeopaths select remedies by consulting reference books known as repertories, and by considering the totality of the patient's symptoms, personal traits, physical and psychological state, and life history.[10]
Homeopathy lacks biological plausibility[11] and the axioms of homeopathy have been refuted for some time.[12] The postulated mechanisms of action of homeopathic remedies are both scientifically implausible[13][14] and not physically possible.[15] Although some clinical trials produce positive results,[16][17] systematic reviews reveal that this is because of chance, flawed research methods, and reporting bias. Overall there is no evidence of efficacy.[13][18][19][20]

Historical context

Homeopaths claim that Hippocrates may have originated homeopathy around 400 BC, when he prescribed a small dose of mandrake root to treat mania, knowing it produces mania in much larger doses.[28] In the 16th century, the pioneer of pharmacology Paracelsus declared that small doses of "what makes a man ill also cures him."[29] Samuel Hahnemann (1755–1843) gave homeopathy its name and expanded its principles in the late 18th century. At that time, mainstream medicine used methods like bloodletting and purging, and administered complex mixtures, such as Venice treacle, which was made from 64 substances including opium, myrrh, and viper's flesh.[30] These treatments often worsened symptoms and sometimes proved fatal.[31][32] Hahnemann rejected these practices – which had been extolled for centuries[33] – as irrational and inadvisable;[34] instead, he advocated the use of single drugs at lower doses and promoted an immaterial, vitalistic view of how living organisms function, believing that diseases have spiritual, as well as physical causes.[35]


Allopathy


Allopathic medicine is an expression commonly used by homeopaths and proponents of other forms of alternative medicine to refer to mainstream medical use of pharmacologically active agents or physical interventions to treat or suppress symptoms or pathophysiologic processes of diseases or conditions.[1] The expression was coined in 1810 by the creator of homeopathy, Samuel Hahnemann (1755–1843).[2] In such circles, the expression "allopathic medicine" is still used to refer to "the broad category of medical practice that is sometimes called Western medicine, biomedicine, evidence-based medicine, or modern medicine" (see the article on scientific medicine).[3]

Allopathic medicine and allopathy (from the Greek prefix ἄλλος, állos, "other", "different" + the suffix πάϑος, páthos, "suffering") are terms coined in the early 19th century[4] by Samuel Hahnemann,[2][5] the founder of homeopathy, as a synonym for mainstream medicine.

Hmm, allo-purinol, allo-pathy, coincidence, I don't think so.