There is nothing new about gout, it has been around for hundreds and probably thousands of year and has seen millions of people suffer with it. Gout is prevalent in some families, if your father or other male member of your family has gout then there is a chance that you to will develop it.

No one thinks much about purines in their food, the items that are high in purines are often amongst the most flavourful foods. Shellfish, red meats and game meats are all high in purines. Only when you have an agonizing attack of gout or even worse kidney stones do you start to even consider the purines in your food.

In milder cases, the person may only develop a condition called hyperucemia, a condition characterized by elevated levels of uric acid in the blood. Such a condition may not develop into arthritis or other kidney problems.

Gout attacks are partly caused by your body trying to protect itself, it sees the uric acid crystals as an invader and white blood cells are sent out to put a safety envelope around the crystals. This is when the pain starts.

Gout usually attacks men over the age of 21, this may be partly due to the increased alcohol intake that starts after than age. Although middle age and later is when most men will start to suffer with gout, most likely due to the increase in obesity and the fact that people tend to stop watching what they eat after a certain age.

In the United States, there are approximately a million people who have the disease. It is more prevalent in men than women. In the males, the most at risk are those after puberty and menopausal stage in women. Elevated levels of uric acid in the blood or hyperuricemia in medical term, may point to a heightened risk of gout development but, medical studies has yet to uncover the relationship of hyperuricemia and gout. It is known however that many of those who have hyperuricemia will not necessarily succumb to development of gout. In contrast, there are many who have experienced gout attacks actually have normal to low uric acid levels.

What are the causes of gout? When you knew the symptoms and causes are then you can do something to avoid them and prevent yourself suffering from gout or at least reduce the severity of your gout episodes.