Gout and Nuts

[John Gee]

Most articles state that nuts are not bad for gout. However, I have had many attacks where afterwards I reviewed my diet and found nuts to be a problem. Or maybe I am eating too much, so that the high fat in nuts is causing the problem. I am interested in other people experiences with nuts.

[Keith Taylor]

Hi John, and welcome to the forum.

I understand you’ve suffered some delays due to a problem with your activation email. I hope that’s all sorted now.

You’ve posed a very interesting question here. I love that you are analyzing your food intake and looking for patterns. You might have hit upon a new gout phenomenon that’s only just being recognized by top gout researchers. Joosten has identified that Free Fatty Acids (FFAs) are probably responsible for most of the gout flares previously attributed to purines. He argues that uric acid crystals alone do not cause gout flares. They need a catalyst. The most likely candidates are FFAs, especially stearic acid. Stearic Acid is apparently common in nuts. I thought I’d prepared a list of stearic acid foods, but I can’t find it. I’ll keep looking, and report back.

We had an interesting discussion about this earlier ( https://gout-pal.com/gout-pal-forum/please-help-my-gout/ffa-foods/ ). Interesting, but intense. Theses cutting-edge gout debates are very interesting. But. they’re tiring because all the reports are very scientific, and take some deciphering.

The easy way out of this is to drop uric acid below 5mg/dL. Once the bulk of old uric acid crystals have dissolved, you never have to worry about purines and FFAs. I notice from your profile that you are on allopurinol, John. If this is being managed properly, you should soon be able to stop worrying about nuts.

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