But did you know that, in the past centuries, when the gout was represented a very widespread pathology, particularly among the famous people was associated with marked intellectual qualities, as well as virility? Well, a false myth of the past. But gout is always well present and faced with increasingly growing cases, the Italian society of rheumatology draws attention to this pathology that has nothing romantic or legendary.
“Today in Italy, 20% of the adult population has high levels of uric acid in the blood (hyperuricemia), direct cause of gout,” says Andrea Doria, president of Sir. “Not all subjects with hyperuricemia then meet the disease, which occurs when the accumulation of uric acid deposits of crystals at the joint level, giving rise to acute and intermittent pain in attacks and evolving in a chronic form of arthritis. He suffers from gout 1% of adults in Italy, 4% in the USA and the incidence of the pathology are constantly increasing due to the aging of the population, the growing rates of obesity and Diabetes, of bad habits such as alcohol abuse, as well as the spread of some classes of drugs: factors that cause a reduction in the functional renal and therefore of the ability to expel uric acid.
A public health problem not to be underestimated. But what are the offensive weapons?
“With the early diagnosis and appropriate therapies, to which to support healthy nutrition and moderate physical activity, it is possible to manage the pathology effectively and also make it regress. In addition, since hyperuricemia is an important cardiovascular risk factor, keeping it under control means preventing not only towards gout but also compared to cardiovascular and dysmetabolic pathologies”.
Leonardo Punzi, director of the Institute of History of Rheumatology, who studies rheumatological pathologies in the past to better understand them also in the present, comments: “Recent studies have clarified how uric acid is a stimulant of attention on a par with caffeine, with which it has a great chemical similarity. In addition, the increase in the values of Uricemia has also had its evolutionary ‘utility’, because thanks to the antioxidant properties, Anti-pitigner and stimulants of uric acid, facilitated the passage of man to the erect position.
Patients with gout rarely reach normal uric acid values only thanks to the diet. “In the majority of cases it is necessary to prescribe drug therapy. Studies of the last few years have highlighted the importance of reducing weight and physical activity in the management of patients with gout and hyperuricemic, not only for the beneficial effects of such behaviors on the disease in itself, but also on the other pathologies that are often understood, such as hypertension, heart attack, stop, obesity and diabetes”.