I would have thought twice about that fizzy drink with my sandwich yesterday had I known about the latest findings on gout. According to today's British Medical Journal, men who had two or more cans of soft drinks a day were 85% more likely to get gout compared to those who had one a month or less.
As someone who has been laid low by gout - acute pain and gout go together like Marcel Proust and memory - I should welcome the news from the BMJ, as gout sufferers suffer from an image problem.
When we limp into the office and loosen our shoes to ease the pain, the cry goes up that we have been overindulging on the port, stilton, whisky, claret, foie gras and whatever else passes for rich food. Those Victorian cartoons of overweight, bewigged aristos soaking their feet in basins have done gout sufferers - some 600,000 people in Britain (mostly men) - little service. No matter how often we point out that gout is a type of arthritis, colleagues continue to smirk, as the common perception is that the disease stems from an overdose of good living. Gout will probably never shake off its reputation as the "disease of kings", no matter what the medical experts say, but perhaps the BMJ will have done that little bit to chip away at common misconceptions.
The BMJ sees a link between soft drinks and gout because the condition is caused by the formation of urate crystals, formed by too much uric acid crystals, in joints - typically the big toe. Sweet fizzy drinks contain large amounts of fructose that increase the levels of uric acid in the blood and so can trigger gout if taken in quantity. Until now, the general advice was to avoid alcohol, particularly beer. Of course, once gout sets in, then it's time for the anti-inflammatory pills, which don't necessarily have to be on prescription. When I felt an onset a few months ago, my doctor told me to buy ibuprofen, and I now keep them handy at the office as well as at home. Chronic sufferers can take medication daily.
For the fizzy drinks industry, the latest news will come as another blow. Market research shows that Britons are increasingly rejecting fizzy drinks. Now the industry stands to lose the gout-suffering segment too. I did enjoy my soft drink yesterday. But it will be my last this month.
