Drink port and not beer to avoid gout, study suggests

Glass of fortified wine does not increase chance of chronic condition, but same cannot be said for other alcoholic drinks

People should avoid beer rather than port if they want to lower their chances of getting gout, a study has suggested.
The research found that a daily glass of fortified wine did not increase the risk of the painful foot condition, according to data from more than 400,000 Britons.
A pint of beer or cider a day, however, was found to increase the risk by 60 per cent in men and 62 per cent in women.
Gout affects about one in 40 people in the UK and is a form of inflammatory arthritis that causes severe pain and swelling in the joints. The first symptom is often discomfort in the big toe.
Sufferers have periodic flare-ups of the chronic condition that affects that person for life. Postmenopausal women and men over 30 are most prone to the condition.
Gout is caused by uric acid building up in the body and turning into urate crystals which accumulate in the joints, causing inflammation and swelling.
The study’s authors, from China’s Suzhou Medical College of Soochow University, said that beer and cider may be the worst drinks for gout risk because they contain a high level of chemicals called purines, which get broken down into uric acid in the body.
Bacon, turkey, sardines, haddock and offal are all also high in purines and should be avoided by gout sufferers to prevent flare-ups, scientists say. Foods deemed to contain a moderate amount of purines which should be consumed sparingly include beef, chicken, crab and shrimp.
Analysis of data from the UK Biobank found men should also avoid red wine, with one glass a day increasing gout risk by 12 per cent. A daily glass of red, however, was not shown to increase the likelihood of gout in women.
White wine and champagne was also found to slightly raise the chance of gout in both sexes.
The study, published in the journal JAMA Network Open, found that the risk of gout increases the more beer someone consumes.
For example, a man who drinks two or three pints a week is 18 per cent more likely to get gout than a man who does not drink. However, this risk is more than double for someone who has more than seven pints a week.
No level of port consumption resulted in a significant increase in the risk of gout, data show, but the scientists also found that no amount of alcohol was actually able to reduce the risk of gout.
“These findings suggest that specific alcoholic beverages are associated with a similar risk of gout for men and women and that alcohol consumption should be minimised for gout prevention regardless of sex,” the scientists wrote in the paper.
“In this prospective cohort study with a careful consideration of potential confounding and reverse causation, consumption of several specific alcoholic beverages was associated with higher risk of gout among both sexes.
“The observed sex-specific difference in the association of total alcohol consumption with incident gout may be owing to differences between men and women in the types of alcohol consumed rather than biological differences.”