Gout is an inflammatory disease of the joints. The metatarsophalangeal joint at the base of the big toe, is the place where it is most often found and accounts for 50% of cases. Other joints, such as the heel, knee, wrist and fingers, may also be affected.
Gout Diagnosis - What you Need to Know
A diagnosis of gout is made when they are detected uric acid crystals in the liquid obtained from your articulation. Your doctor may examine your urine to see if your body is excreting excess uric acid.
Uric acid levels can also be measured with blood tests, however these are not always accurate. Uric acid levels can be normal or even reduced during an episode of gout.
Blood tests are more useful to rule out others types of joint infections or arthritis. The X-rays are often normal in the early stages of gout, so they are not very useful for diagnosis of.
What Causes the Disease - Factors that Trigger Gout
Urinary arthritis (gout) is caused by the deposition in and around the joints in the form of crystals of a uric acid salt called urinary mononuclear. The formation of these crystals is due to a large increase in the levels of uric acid in the blood (hyperuricemia).
Uric acid is a normal product and is derived from the breakdown of purines contained in some foods, and is excreted by the kidneys. Hyperuricemia is caused either by increased uric acid production or by reduced renal excretion or by a combination of both of these mechanisms.
Who is Offended?
It affects men much more often than women, even at a ratio of 5: 1, while it shows its highest frequency after the fifth decade of age.
How the Disease Manifests Itself
A long period of asymptomatic hyperuricemia usually precedes the onset of the first episode of acute gout. However, it has been estimated, that only 10-15% of people with persistent and severe hyperuricaemia eventually develop gout after decades.
The answer to this is unknown. It is known, however, that some factors favor the development of acute gout.
One such factor is a sharp increase or decrease in uric acid levels in the blood serum and synovial fluid, resulting in the precipitation or release of urinary mononuclear crystals within the joint. Such a rapid change in uric acid levels is caused by:
- From repeated minor injuries to a joint
- From heavy alcohol consumption
- From drugs (some diuretics, small doses of aspirin, allopurinol)
- From consuming foods that are rich in purines
New Technology Diagnoses Gout Without Needles
The word “needle” conjures up negative images for many people, especially when it comes to medicine. It’s perhaps the most universally hated medical device in the world. After all, blood tests are painful and inflict unnecessary stress.
Gout sufferers would be all too familiar with needles and blood tests.
But the good news is that using needles isn’t the only way to diagnose the condition.
New research published in Nature Biotechnology shows that this torture isn’t necessary at all.
One of the biggest problems with sweat sensors is that they require too much sweat to test accurately. They cannot measure chemicals precisely in the tiny amounts of liquid we sweat out.
Secondly, those that are accurate are very expensive. Scientists have worked out how to make cheaper sensors from graphene in which they use commonly available carbon dioxide lasers to engrave the tiny channels into which the fluids go.
Their sensors can measure respiratory and heart rates that can help diagnose heart disease and fitness-related conditions, blood uric acid for gout diagnosis, and blood tyrosine for liver disease and metabolic disease diagnosis.
They tested gout patients and people without gout to compare their readings. The sensor accurately measured the gout patient’s uric acid to be higher than that of the healthy volunteers.
To ensure that the sensors were right, the scientists drew blood from these subjects and compared their blood readings with their sweat sensor readings. The sensors showed the same readings as the blood tests.
They next tested the sweat of healthy gout-free volunteers while they were fasting and again after they ate a meal packed with purines, a chemical in food that our bodies break down to uric acid.
The sensor correctly measured the higher uric acid levels after the meals.
But you know you have gout, so the most important question is how can you cure it? This is actually easy to do if you turn the traditional gout treatments on their head. I’ll explain this here..
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