Sugary Drinks Linked to Gout

Nov. 10, 2010— -- ATLANTA — Here in the home of Coca-Cola, researchers reported that consumption of fructose-sweetened sodas was significantly associated with newly diagnosed gout in the Nurses' Health Study.

Participants in the 22-year study who reported drinking one sugary soda per day were 74 percent more likely than those who said they drank less than one per month to develop incident gout – an inflammatory condition caused by elevated levels of uric acid in the blood that deposits in the joints – according to Dr. Hyon Choi of Boston University and colleagues.

The risk was even higher among participants who reported drinking two or more sugary sodas per day, Choi reported at a poster session here during the American College of Rheumatology's annual meeting. The findings were also published simultaneously online in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

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The association was not limited to soft drinks, though — orange juice also appeared to be a risk factor for incident gout.

"Physicians should be aware of the potential effect of these beverages on the risk of gout," Choi and colleagues wrote in the JAMA article.

They noted that, although gout has been a predominantly male disease, it strikes women too, particularly those older than 70.

The Nurses' Health Study, a huge longitudinal study of female health professionals that began in 1984, appeared to be an ideal for examining the role of diet in gout among women. Participants completed a detailed questionnaire on diet and other lifestyle factors at baseline and were followed prospectively through 2006, providing 22 years of follow-up.

Choi and colleagues looked for associations between sugar-sweetened drink intake and incident gout in about 79,000 participants who did not have known gout at baseline. During the study, 778 women were diagnosed with gout.

After adjusting for other dietary factors believed to contribute to gout as well as age, menopause status, body mass index, history of hypertension, diuretic use, and hormone therapy, the researchers found significant correlations between fructose-sweetened soda consumption and incident gout.