Once known as the rich man disease, gout’s prevelance is swelling globally.
If you’ve been diagnosed with gout, you are in august company. King Henry VIII was said to have been afflicted with the disease, giving rise to it being labelled ‘the king of diseases’ or ‘the disease of kings’.
The condition is no archaic phenomenon, however. There has been a sharp rise in gout sufferers worldwide. According to the Annals of The Rheumatic Diseases Journal, there was a 29.6% rise in sufferers in the UK between 1997 and 2012, and one in 40 people in the UK are said to be affected. Findings in Arthritis and Rheumatism show that 8.3 million people in the US now suffer from the disease.
The rise in prevalence of the condition can be attributed to a combination of ageing and an affluent lifestyle. This is borne out by the fact that gout often occurs together with other lifestyle diseases like high blood pressure, diabetes and abnormal blood cholesterol.
In medical terms, gout is caused by the build up of uric acid in the blood. This happens when the patient has a faulty enzyme system which cannot handle too much purine in the diet. The excess uric acid in the bloodstream leads to uric acid salt crystals being formed. These crystals can get deposited within joints, under the skin or in the kidneys. The patients then suffer from arthritis which is inflammation of the joints, kidney stones, and skin lumps called tophi.