Tomatoes fuel gout
Larissa Melville completed her traineeship in the editorial team of . After studying biology at Ludwig Maximilians University and the Technical University of Munich, she first got to know digital media online at Focus and then decided to learn medical journalism from scratch.
More about the experts All content is checked by medical journalists.Alcohol, seafood, red meat - some people react to such delights with an attack of gout, which makes the joints ache and swell. The list of problematic foods may soon be extended. Because tomatoes are also under suspicion.
Tanya Flynn and her colleagues from the University of Otago took a closer look at the connection between eating habits and gout attacks. The team asked more than 2,500 gout patients whether and, if so, which foods trigger a gout attack in them. 71 percent of the subjects said that certain foods fueled their gout. Seafood and fish came in first place among the potential triggers with 63 percent, followed by alcohol (47 percent). Another 35 percent of the participants named red meat.
Tomatoes in fourth place
But apparently there is another potential trigger: a full 20 percent of the participants blamed tomatoes for their acute pain attacks. This suspicion is not entirely new - in the past, gout patients repeatedly reported that tomatoes could be to blame for their attacks.
Flynn and her colleagues took the result of their survey as an opportunity to investigate more closely what effects eating tomatoes have on the body. "We wanted to know what the biological mechanisms are," says the researcher.
To do this, the team analyzed data from over 12,700 men and women collected from three US long-term health studies. "We found that tomatoes increase uric acid levels - to the same extent as fish, red meat or alcohol," reports Flynn. And uric acid is the substance that provokes attacks of gout. For the final proof that tomatoes actually belong on the official list of foods that cause gout, further studies are necessary, according to the scientists.
Too much uric acid in the blood
If the uric acid level is too high, for example in people with a corresponding genetic predisposition, the kidneys can no longer filter the substance out of the blood in sufficient quantities. The result: Small units of uric acid then combine to form needle-like crystals. These are deposited in the tissue, in internal organs - and also in the joints. There they cause severe pain and can cause permanent damage.
Uric acid is a breakdown product that is mainly produced by the breakdown of purines. These are important components of various body structures. Purines are made by the body as well as ingested through food. Foods of animal origin are particularly rich in purine. But alcohol is also problematic for people with gout because it contains carboxylic acids. These compete with uric acid in the kidneys, which means that less can be excreted.
Congenital metabolic disorder
Gout patients suffer from a mostly congenital metabolic disorder. Your kidneys naturally excrete too little uric acid - or the body produces too much uric acid. In most patients, this malfunction only becomes noticeable later in life: The first attack of gout usually occurs between the ages of 40 and 60 - often favored by unhealthy lifestyle and eating habits such as obesity and excessive consumption of meat and alcohol. In addition to a healthier and low-purine lifestyle, gout-afflicted drugs with the active ingredient allopurinol help, which lower the uric acid level in the blood.
Sources:
Flynn T.J. et al .: Positive association of tomato consumption with serum urate: support for tomato consumption as an anecdotal trigger of gout flares. BioMed Central Musculoskeletal Disorders. doi: 10.1186 / s12891-015-0661-8
Press release of the University of Otago (New Zealand) from 08/19/2015
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