What is gout?
Gout is a form of joint inflammation that is caused by excess uric acid in the body. This happens due to poor diet, stress and not enough sleep. Gout causes a sudden and severe pain - you'll notice the skin over the affected joint is usually red and glossy. Often times, gout attacks come on as fast as overnight.
Men between 30 and 50 years old are mostly affected by gout, for pre menopausal women, the uric acid level is lower, but after age 50 uric acid tends to increase along with the increase of gout incidents.
Primarily, gout affects one and sometimes two joints at a time; more often it attacks the feet and ankles. Even without healing, the pain subsides for about a week. It takes months or years before it returns, during this time attacks become more frequent and more severe, more joints are now involved. And when gout becomes chronic, the damage to the joint is deforming and crippling.
Can gout be cured naturally?
Curing gout naturally takes time, especially if a body has accumulated toxins over a lifetime, but it will be well worth the effort. Cleansing your system of accumulated toxins promotes proper functioning of your body and puts you on the road to natural good health.
Here's what you can do:
1. Maintain a healthy weight and diet. It is not recommended to be 30 pounds (or more) overweight, as this increases the risk of gout.
2. Loose weight if you need to. By loosing weight you reduce the pressure on weight-bearing joints and also lower uric acid levels. You don't want to use practices that encourage rapid weight loss such as fasting as it can raise the uric acid level temporarily.
3. Avoid excessive eating of high protein foods. It is suggested for a person to eat no more than six ounces of lean meat, fish and poultry, especially those who already have gout. A high-protein food increases the blood level of uric acid.
Natural treatment for gout
Eating simple and natural food in proper combination and preparation helps your body restore and maintain vibrant health. The best diet for people with gout is 80 percent raw food or if possible organic food; these include live foods like sprouts, wheat grass, and fresh picked garden salads, and more grains, fruits and vegetables in place of protein.
The protein you need can come from non-animal food sources like legumes, such as beans, peas and lentils. Nuts are also essential and can include almonds, apricot nuts, and hazelnuts, as well as seeds such as hemp seed hearts, flax, and sesame.
A substance in some foods known as purines is a danger to gout patients and should be limited or avoided as much as possible.
The foods that contain high levels of purines include,
- Organ meats like liver, brain, kidney, tongue, tripe, and sweetbread
- Anchovies, herring and mackerel
- Meats, poultry, fish, shellfish, fish roe, scallops
- Peas, lentils, and beans though they have small amounts of purines, they should still be avoided by people suffering from gout.
Balancing the pH in a person's body is a crucial factor in curing gout; proper pH produces a healthy immune system and internal environment. Healing of chronic illness occurs when the blood is restored to normal or slightly alkaline pH.
Exercise is another essential for curing pains caused by gout. Stretching increases and maintains a range of motion in the joints and helps to strengthen and stabilize them. This also increases the endurance and stamina of the body overall.
Reducing repetitive use of joints, and avoiding sports injuries by including proper warm-ups are also important, as it choosing suitable sports equipment for exercising.
Another way is treat gout naturally is to avoid alcoholic beverages; consuming excessive alcohol like beer inhibits the excretion of uric acid and can lead to gout. It is advised for a male to have two drinks of alcohol per day, one drink per day for women. It is best for a person who is having a gout attack to refrain from drinking alcohol.
Drinking water and is also a natural way of curing gout because it has the ability to dilute uric acid in both blood and urine.
