What are the dietary taboos for high uric acid?

The core dietary taboo for high uric acid is actually the long-term and large intake of three types of foods that are high in purine, high in fructose, and alcohol. There are no foods that must not be eaten, only foods that are not suitable for eating in large quantities and frequently.

Not long ago, I met a 32-year-old programmer in a group of gout patients. He usually likes to have skewers with iced Coke after work and has at least three late-night snacks a week. Last year, his physical examination revealed that uric acid had soared to 680 μmol/L. He had never had gout. He heard people said that high uric acid could not eat any meat, so he ate boiled vegetables for two months. The reexamination showed that the uric acid only dropped by 30%. He was also dizzy and almost fell to his workstation due to malnutrition when he went to work.

In fact, many people tend to go to extremes when it comes to dietary taboos related to high uric acid. They either dare not touch anything or do not take taboos seriously. There are also many myths that have been circulating for a long time that have actually come to new conclusions. Take for example the most controversial soybean products. It used to be said that tofu and bean sprouts should not be used with high uric acid. But in fact, the purine content of whole soybeans is indeed not low. However, in the process of processing into tofu and soy milk, most of the purine is lost with the yellow slurry water, and the absorption and utilization rate of plant purine in the human body is much lower than that of animal purine. Purine, as long as it is not an acute attack of gout, eating one or two pieces of tofu every day will not add burden to uric acid at all. On the contrary, many people dare not eat soy products, so they drink Laohuojing soup that has been simmered for two or three hours. Even if it is a vegetarian soup, purine is dissolved in the soup. Drinking one bowl can raise uric acid much faster than eating two pieces of tofu.

In addition to purine-related misunderstandings, many people also tend to ignore the invisible major contributors to uric acid. Let’s talk about fructose. Many people think that only sweet milk tea and cakes contain fructose. Little do they know that many sparkling waters and sports drinks on the market labeled as “sugar-free” use fructose syrup, which directly promotes the production of uric acid during metabolism. My Aunt Zhang downstairs never eats sweets, but likes to drink two cups of freshly squeezed fruit and vegetable juices every day. She feels healthy. As a result, the uric acid level was above 550 three times in a row. She stopped freshly squeezed juice and switched to eating fruit directly. Within a month, it dropped to 480.

Some people say that you should not drink beer if you have high uric acid, and you will be fine if you drink white wine or red wine. This is also a misunderstanding. No matter what kind of wine, the alcohol contained in it will inhibit the excretion of uric acid in the kidneys, especially cold beer itself contains a lot of purine. If you really want to drink, you would rather take a few sips of low-alcohol red wine than drink cold beer.

To put it bluntly, a diet with high uric acid is never about forcing yourself to become an "ascetic". Occasionally eating a few bites of crayfish or a piece of cake to satisfy your craving will not cause uric acid to suddenly explode. What is really taboo is to eat high-purine, high-fructose, and alcoholic foods as daily meals. The long-term accumulation will put a burden on the body.