Alternative medicine and supplements that help with gout
Once you have the intake of uric acid under control by a proper diet, you want to get rid of the excess levels in your blood. The medicines you get from your doctor will stop or lower the production of uric acid, and your kidneys will work to flush out the excess. Drinking lots of water helps.
Apart from getting rid of the uric acid already in your blood, it helps if you strengthen the function of your liver and kidneys beforehand. If nothing else, it can make attacks shorter. There are two ways of strengthening liver and kidney function: Ayrvedic and Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM). Both are based on systems of thought and ways of understanding the function of the body that goes back 1500 years (or more). Recommending ayrvedic or TCM medicines is a bit tricky, since it assumes that the practitioner finds out how the balance in the body is disrupted, much the same as a regular doctor.
Apart from getting rid of the uric acid already in your blood, it helps if you strengthen the function of your liver and kidneys beforehand. If nothing else, it can make attacks shorter. There are two ways of strengthening liver and kidney function: Ayrvedic and Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM). Both are based on systems of thought and ways of understanding the function of the body that goes back 1500 years (or more). Recommending ayrvedic or TCM medicines is a bit tricky, since it assumes that the practitioner finds out how the balance in the body is disrupted, much the same as a regular doctor.
TRYING IT CLINICALLY
Ask in any gout support group on the Internet, and you are likely to get hundreds of recommendations for different herbs and natural preparations. Truth is, the placebo effect (where you belief in the effect makes it happen) is probably the strongest ingredient in those medicines. There are very few herbal medicines for gout which have been the subject of clinical trials (a clinical trial is where the study objects - gout sufferers - are given either the medicine to be studied or something else which has no effect. If there are enough test subjects, and a statistically significant number of people on the actual medicine show improvement, then the clinical trial shows that the medicine works).
Creating clinical trials is tricky because the test subjects have to be comparable - same height, weight, and genetic makeup. And they have to have the same condition in the same way. Very often, the number showing improvements are not enough to prove any effect either.
Creating clinical trials is tricky because the test subjects have to be comparable - same height, weight, and genetic makeup. And they have to have the same condition in the same way. Very often, the number showing improvements are not enough to prove any effect either.
FEW EFFECTS IN NATURE
Few plants have any actual medical effects, and when they do, they are normally turned into medicine so that the active substance is isolated and the concentration is standardized. In most places this means the medicine is so chemically treated that the herbal origins are lost, but in Japan you can buy standardized herbal medicine which is often prescribed by doctors. And even though they have not been subject to clinical trials, Japanese herbal medicines show the same effect as Western medicine in cell trials.
CHERRIES SAID TO REDUCE THE URIC ACID
There are lots of "folk wisdom" on the Internet proposing various remedies and alleviations for gout. Very few have been subject to any form of clinical testing, and of those that have, the only one which supposedly has any effect is dark cherries - the darker the better.
Since trials have been limited, it is hard to say how cherries work on gout. But it appears that they do have effect on the concentration of uric acid in the blood, probably by inhibiting the enzymed that break down purines.
But when I tried it myself, cherries had absolutely no effect on my uric acid level. Maybe they have some other effect that I can not measure, but since I started measuring my uric acid level, I know what the normal value is. And cherries did not make any different in the slightest.
Since trials have been limited, it is hard to say how cherries work on gout. But it appears that they do have effect on the concentration of uric acid in the blood, probably by inhibiting the enzymed that break down purines.
But when I tried it myself, cherries had absolutely no effect on my uric acid level. Maybe they have some other effect that I can not measure, but since I started measuring my uric acid level, I know what the normal value is. And cherries did not make any different in the slightest.
JUICE WITHOUT EFFECT
Black cherries may have effect thanks to inhibiting enzymes which produce uric acid, but you need a lot more than the usual dessert to have effect. Even chugging cherry juice does not bring you close to the effective concentration. There is too much water in it, and it also contains fructose (a natural ingredient in cherries). So you need something different, which has a higher concentration of the active ingredient (probably the red color).
CONCENTRATION IN CAPSULES
The solution, if you will pardon the pun, is to concentrate the juice and remove the water and fructose. This gives a powder which will have much higher concentration of the active ingredients, and that means higher effect on gout.
Gout is not only excess of uric acid - many people have excess uric acid but no gout. If you have a predisposition for gout you may also have a predisposition for arthritic inflammation, and that is gout without the uric acid. If you weigh more than you should, you are in a constant state of low-level inflammation, so it would make sense to take a supplement that reduces the inflammation while also reducing uric acid.
Gout is not only excess of uric acid - many people have excess uric acid but no gout. If you have a predisposition for gout you may also have a predisposition for arthritic inflammation, and that is gout without the uric acid. If you weigh more than you should, you are in a constant state of low-level inflammation, so it would make sense to take a supplement that reduces the inflammation while also reducing uric acid.
ALTERNATIVES TO ALLOPURINOL
To get rid of gout you have to do two things, both of which primarily has long-term effects. The first is to decrease your intake of purines, the compound in food which is turned to uric acid. And the second is to decrease your bodys production of uric acid, and decrease the amount of purines which become uric acid in your body.
To do the first, you need to change your diet. There is no medication or alternative medicine preparation which can decrease the amount of purines in food.
To do the second, you have to have medication. The most popular is allopurinol. But once that medication has taken effect and lowered the concentration of uric acid in your blood, you can try to do without it if you have successfully changed your lifestyle. To be on the safe side, you will need something to help your body maintain that low concentration.
To do the first, you need to change your diet. There is no medication or alternative medicine preparation which can decrease the amount of purines in food.
To do the second, you have to have medication. The most popular is allopurinol. But once that medication has taken effect and lowered the concentration of uric acid in your blood, you can try to do without it if you have successfully changed your lifestyle. To be on the safe side, you will need something to help your body maintain that low concentration.
HELPING THE REBUILD
If you have gout, you are likely to have other joint problems as well - either from the arthritis or simply from weighing too much. There are two compounds that have slightly more than traditionally recognized effect when it comes to helping joints. Glucosamine and chondroitin are two substances that usually decreases arthritic pain. They can even help in rebuilding destroyed cartilage. But if you have gout, you have to be a little careful. Chondroitin is made from the cartilage of cows and sharks, and glucosamine from the shells of shellfish like lobsters and crayfish. The active substances are usually not enough to trigger a gout attack.
ADDING SUPPORT TO YOUR DIET
It may seem like beating gout is about giving up things. But there are things you can add as well. There are plenty of supplements which will help against arthritis, which is like gout without uric acid crystals. If you have gout, you probably have arthritis as well. Arthritis is much more disabling than gout over time, since the pain may not be as intense but never lets up. So you really want to hold off the arthritis as long as you can (like gout, it is a condition rather than a disease).
There are a few other supplements that have shown some effect in clinical trials. Clinical trials are important, because even if it seems a treatment works for you, it may not work for anyone else. And even if it does, you do not know what side effects it may have. So by doing a clinical trial, the pharmaceutical companies ensure that what they sell works. There are laws that ensure that they do not say their products do what rhey can not, and agencies to monitor them. That is a good thing. But it does not apply to supplements, which can be sold if they are not poisonous. So when there are clinical trials for a supplement, it means the researchers got non-profit funding or want to calibrate their protocol.
There are three gout supplements which have been the subject of clinical trials, as far as I can find: Milk, lemon juice, and vitamin C.
Huh? Are those supplements? Well, since all supplements formally speaking are food (in the US, they have to be approved by the Food and Drug administration - as foods), things that you would eat or drink anyway are supposed to have effect on the uric acid level.
I explained the effect of orotic acid in milk on another page, but I have not mentioned anything about lemon juice and vitamin C.
Huh? Are those supplements? Well, since all supplements formally speaking are food (in the US, they have to be approved by the Food and Drug administration - as foods), things that you would eat or drink anyway are supposed to have effect on the uric acid level.
I explained the effect of orotic acid in milk on another page, but I have not mentioned anything about lemon juice and vitamin C.