Welcome to the Nutrition Facts Podcast. I'm your host, Dr. Michael Greger.

I'm thrilled that you've decided to join me today because the more I learn about the latest

in nutrition research, the more convinced I am that this information can make a real difference

in all our lives. And I like nothing better than sharing it with you.

Today we look at a disease that many associate with English kings from the 17th century called

Gout. But anyone who has it today can tell you it's a very real and painful condition.

It occurs when there's a build up of euric acid in the blood and can be caused by the food

we eat. If the euric acid crystals that trigger gout comes from the breakdown of pure reans,

should gout patients avoid even healthy, purean rich food such as beans, mushrooms, and cauliflower,

that'll be the first story I cover here.

Over 2000 years ago, Pockardys described Gout as a disease of kings, primarily because

it was the wealthy who could afford the rich foods which seemed to precipitate gouty attacks.

But now we can all eat like kings and acquire some diseases of royalty ourselves. Gout

is caused by needle sharp crystals of euric acid in our joints and euric acid comes from

the breakdown of purines. Purines are the breakdown product of genetic material, DNA, the foundation

of all life. So there's no such thing as a purine free diet, but foods do vary in their

purine content. It was long thought that people with gout just need to stay away from all

high purine foods, whether they're from animals like organ meats or plants like beans.

But this strategy proved ineffective. Yes, all euric acid comes to the breakdown of purines,

the limiting meat makes sense, but that means all kinds of meat and plant sources have

now been largely exonerated. The association of Gout with both alcohol intake and increased

dietary purine consumption has been known since ancient times, but there were no prospective

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