Gout and Uric acid control

I met someone few weeks ago who had diabetes, 

and she said 

"You know,  I wonder why I got diabetes, I don't like sugar so much."

And in front of me,  she finished two packets of fried chips. 

Here in the Philippines,  not many doctors take time to teach their patients. 

They don't ask their patients to go to nutritionist so they can learn how to control their blood sugar.

A lot of people nowadays  know that diabetes is not about sugar,  but about blood sugar. 

So it is important to monitor their calorie intake,  look at GI of food,  so you could watch your total carb intake.  

Weighing food beforehand is important if you really want to monitor your calories.

For sugar and diabetes information, you could refer to this website.

The fact about sugar and diabetes http://www.diabetes.org.nz/food_and_nutrition/healthy_food_choices__and__tips/food/sugar

Same thing for uric acid.  

But uric acid is a bit more complicated than diabetes.   Because it could destroy your kidney or other organs even you don't have gout attack for years.  

And here in the Philippines,  I often hear people say 

"all beans are high in uric acid, so I shouldn't eat."

"anything with seeds are bad, so you shouldn't eat tomatoes."

But again, almost all food have purine.  And what is important is total amount of intake. 

So here,  I weighed some food that people often avoid.

It is recommended that you shouldn't get more than 400mg of purine a day.

I got this reference from internet website here.

http://www.acumedico.com/purine.htm

So this is oil sardines.  

It's 29g for three pieces. 

Sardins in oil is 480mg /100g purine

So if it's 29g, purine content here is 139.2mg

46.4 mg / piece

This is  anchovy in oil. (239mg /100g)

It's 5g per piece.

So purine content here is 11.95mg

Remember you could eat total of 400mg a day.

So if you just don't eat too much, one or two pieces is just fine.

This is chicken thigh with skin.

110mg /100g 

So you noticed that per 100g purine is quite low compared to sardines and anchovy.

Total weight for 2 pieces is 108g

So total purine is 118.8mg

The most among three items I weighted.

It is true that some fruits and vegetable are high in purine contents, 

but you can't eat that much. 

While even it's not high in purine, 

if you eat a lot, it'll be same.

And you need to consider also if the weather is hot,  

or you do a lot of exercise, 

and you perspire and it's likely to increase uric acid in your  blood.

Drinking a lot of water is important too. 

Medication (if recommended by physician) as well.

And here's my suggestion: 

Weigh your food and know how much you are taking.

you could weigh it until you get an idea of it more or less, 

so eventually you don't need to weigh them all the time.

No need to avoid certain food,  to me. 

just know how much purine you are taking.