Vitamin C reduces incidence of Gout

[fitzgerald]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healt ... -gout.html

[ofonorow]

Interesting. I know it worked in my case after adopting Pauling's regimen.

Men who consumed between 500 milligrams and 999 milligrams of vitamin C a day had a 17 per cent lower risk of developing gout than those who consumed less than 250 milligrams a day.

For every 500-milligram increase in their vitamin C intake, men's risk for gout appeared to decrease by 17 per cent.

Compared with men who did not take vitamin C supplements, those who took 1,000 to 1,499 supplemental milligrams per day had a 34 per cent lower risk of gout and those who took 1,500 supplemental milligrams per day had a 45 per cent lower risk.

[godsilove]

Published in a pretty prestigious medical journal as well. Who says there's a bias against Vitamin C?

[Frank]

How does this reference referring to Vitamin C fit in:
http://experiencingrheumatoidarthritis. ... min-c.html

Consuming more than 2,000 mg can increase the amount of iron you absorb, which could be unsafe for people with hemochromatosis. And large doses (4,000 mg or more) can cause uric acid crystals, which can aggravate gout.

Is this true or more scare mongering?

[ofonorow]

I am not sure of the relevance to the gout study, but it is funny that you brought this up, because the "duke" study mentioned was a scam. It was of knee knob increases in laboratory animals, and was released a few weeks before a large study done in humans which had the opposite results, results highly favorable to vitamin C in reducing the symptoms and severity of arthritis. Which study made headlines? The first, that vitamin C aggravates arthritis, which completed obliterated the news of the real study. This is one of our prime examples of how the Pharma propaganda campaign works.

So, if my theory holds, there should have been a "vitamin C causes gout" paper released not too long ago. I'll do a search... [added]There doesn't seem to be such a story, but the reason may be that there is no prescription drug making billions from treating gout...(Is there?) Thus it was not worth the effort to fabricate research, unlike RA and other forms of arthritis for which there are a myriad of prescription drugs..

[godsilove]

So, if my theory holds, there should have been a "vitamin C causes gout" paper released not too long ago. I'll do a search... [added]There doesn't seem to be such a story, but the reason may be that there is no prescription drug making billions from treating gout...(Is there?) Thus it was not worth the effort to fabricate research, unlike RA and other forms of arthritis for which there are a myriad of prescription drugs..

Not billions, since most of the treatments currently on the market are genericized. There was one that was recently approved - febuxostat (Uloric). It was actually approved last month in the US. Looks like the Big Pharma Propaganda Machine has been caught napping.

Anyway, something that prevents a disease doesn't necessarily treat it.

[ofonorow]

Very interesting. I note this new drug is manufactured by Teijin Pharma Limited, not previously recognized as part of the pharmaceutical cartel. (They will soon learn )

[godsilove]

Very interesting. I note this new drug is manufactured by Teijin Pharma Limited, not previously recognized as part of the pharmaceutical cartel. (They will soon learn )

It's actually marketed by Takeda, which is Japan's largest pharma company. It's obviously not as big as the likes of Merck and Pfizer (especially after their mergers with Schering and Wyeth), but I think it's big enough to be considered a part of Big, Bad Pharma.

[ofonorow]

Maybe, but from "experts" who I have spoken to who routinely travel to Japan to speak about alternatives, they claim to large audiences, medicine in Japan is prone to use prescription drugs as a last resort, not the first resort as we do in the USA.

I have never seen any indication that a Japanese Pharmaceutical is among the cartel that deliberately and constantly distorts information about unpatentable vitamins. They may be part of it, but not to my knowledge.

[mountainofdew]

I don't know if this is the correct place to talk about this. I have gout, and have for about 8 years. I have never taken prescription drugs for it. My siblings, and dad have. Last year I started having an increase in gout attacks. To the point where I was pretty miserable for about 6 months. I changed my diet to low carb, because of my research into sugar, and reading Gary Taubes books. I have had some success with decreasing the incidence, and severity of my attacks. I do feel an occasional irritation which I attribute to gout, although it would not be recognizable as such. Mainly because my inflammation levels are lower, and the joint does not swell, or become red, or super painful any more. Recently I was reading an article about magnesium defiency from a link on this forum. One of the pathways I followed on the chart showed that magnesium deficiency increased( if I remember correctly) production of xanthine oxidase. The reduction of which allopurinol is based on. By that mechanism, allopurinol, reduces uric acid production. Because of this I have increased my intake of magnesium. I have also increased my daily intake of vitamin C from 2 grams to @25 grams. I am measuring by the tablespoon. I am not sure how much the heaping changes from measurement to measurement. I was wondering if anyone has seen any other research that indicates magnesium defiency to gout? I have also increased my vitamin d (10000 iu), and vitamin A (25000 iu), and am taking vitamin k, e, selenium, a b complex, among other supplements. Any other thoughts, research would be helpful. Thanks. Respectfully.

[majkinetor]

[mountainofdew]

Thanks Maj.

I caught something different reading this time around. Looks like Mg. deficiency which increases serum levels of iron. The body produces more xanthine oxidase to reduce iron levels. Vitamin C helps gout by helping body excrete iron. Less iron means less xanthine oxidase which means less uric acid production, and therefore should help gout. Unless something else is going on. Increasing Magnesium intake to @500mg, and will continue vitamin c, and cut out the calcium supps. Thanks again.

[majkinetor]

Unless something else is going on

Unless...

For one, vitamin C improves iron absorption so I doubt your conclusion that improves iron excretion is right.

I would suggest to go coffee/cocoa/black chocolate route also as it is well known inhibitor of xanthine oxidase.

http://www.hopkins-arthritis.org/arthri ... -gout.html

This is also conflicting tho:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9606845

[majkinetor]

O yeah, and in case you didn't notice, fructose is out of question.

See also http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.com/search/label/gout

[ofonorow]

Vitamin C helps gout by helping body excrete iron.

Yes, this seems to be the case (excretion is different than absorption).

But I am more interested in your gout now that you have increased vitamin C. Are you still having attacks?

Years ago, I had "gouty" arthritis in my fingers and toes that cleared up when I started supplementing vitamin C (and adopted Linus Pauling's other recommendations on page 14 of HOW TO LIVE LONGER AND FEEL BETTER.)

I thought the case was closed - until I started to get the same symptoms last Oct after my hospital stays. I now understand that this time, the problem was a lack of endogenous cortisol - a hormone normally produced by the adrenal glands. For some reason, when general inflammation is not controlled (by cortisol) the first things that start hurting are joints, particularly the extremities the furthest from the adrenal gland. A theory might be that the adrenals are not making enough cortisol to allow it to get to the furthest reaches of the body. All the cortisol is being absorbed by cells closer to the midsection of the body.

In this case, to my (very recent) knowledge, your only resolution of the inflammation normally termed "gout" would be low dose prednizone (or some cortisol equivalent).

I've started discussing this "new-found" Cortisol (low dose prednisone) knowledge at the end of this thread:
http://www.vitamincfoundation.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=9194&p=28966#p28966

And until medicine accepts the benefits of a low-dose prednizone - which may be never given the harm that would do to high price RA drugs - it might be impossible to get a long term prescription.