Increase your vitamin C consumption and you could prevent not only cold but gout as well.
According to a new study published recently at Archives of Internal Medicine, researchers found that men who had the highest intake of vitamin C (or ascorbic acid which is an essential nutrient for human) from supplements and/or food were up to 45% less likely to develop gout.
This was a prospective study, meaning that the participants were not assigned to include vitamin C or not include vitamin C in their diet during the study. The analysis was done in 46,994 male participants with no history of gout at the time of recruitment. The vitamin C intake was assessed every 4 years using a supplementary questionnaire to determine the American College of Rheumatology criteria for gout from 1986 to 2006.
During the 20 years of follow-up, the authors documented 1317 incidents of gout. Interestingly, men that had higher vitamin C intake had a lower risk of developing gout. Accordingly to the authors’ calculation, from every 500 mg increase in vitamin C intake, the risk for developing gout decreases approximately 17%. In other words, the comparison was done with men whose vitamin C intake was less than 250 mg per day, the risk for gout was: 45% lower with a daily intake of 1,500 mg or more, 34% lower with a daily intake of 1,000 to 1,499 mg and 17% lower with a daily intake of 500 to 999 mg.
Increased levels of uric acid lead to formation of crystals, which can be deposited in the joints causing pain, inflammation and swelling associated with gout. The authors of the paper suggest that vitamin C may reduce the levels of uric acid in blood by increasing uric acid excretion. Others studies have been recently published indicating that supplement of vitamin C increases the glomerular filtration rate (the rate that blood is filtrated in order to separate the useful compounds and waste material by forming urine, normally 125 ml per minute) which could be another mechanism by which vitamin C increase the excretion of uric acid. Since vitamin C is well know for its antioxidant properties, it is still to be determined if this anti-inflammatory property contributes for the prevention of gout.
The authors, at the end of the paper, concluded the following: “given the general safety profile associated with vitamin C intake, particularly in the generally consumed ranges as in the present study (eg, tolerable upper intake level of vitamin C <2000 mg in adults according to the Food and Nutrition Board, Institute of Medicine) vitamin C intake may provide a useful option in the prevention of gout.”
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