In order to achieve an immediate therapeutic effect, people suffering from a disease such as gout, dietitians prescribe special dietary food. From medical practice, many cases are known when, thanks to a strict diet, in the presence of kidney or joint damage in a patient, a positive therapeutic result was achieved. This is explained by the fact that the diet for this disease helps to reduce the production of purines of exogenous origin
Compliance with a strict diet for gout affecting the joints of the legs is not at all determined by strict fasting, neither during its recurring periodically attacks, nor in the period between them. It is necessary to accurately select those food products, the use of which is vital for the patient, which is an important point in the treatment.
People with gout need to eat a specific diet to help stabilize uric acid levels. In any person, during a routine examination, you can accidentally find an increase in this parameter. In this case, you need to adhere to the dietary regimen in the diet. This approach to the preparation of the patient's menu leads to a significant decrease in the likelihood of recurrence of attacks of the disease, allows you to prevent the cumbersome deposition of purines, namely a significant amount of their compounds in organs and tissues.
The main principles of medical nutrition for gout
A patient with gout should eat systematically, dividing the entire daily portion of food into at least 4 meals. This will help to stop the process of saturation of blood serum with purine bases. In no case is it recommended to overeat with gout, otherwise an increase in the patient's body weight is possible, which negatively affects the joints during movement. But, starvation should also not be allowed. The body weight of obese people should be gradually reduced, but not more than 2 kg per month.
Throughout the day, a gout patient needs to consume about 2 liters of water during remission and at least 3 liters when an exacerbation of the disease occurs. It should not be forgotten that the use of mineral water, which contains alkali, favorably promotes the removal of urates from the patient's body.
Prohibited foods for gout
A very important point is to choose the right diet for a gout patient. It is necessary to minimize the amount of those products that contain numerous purine bases. These include the following:
- broths made from meat, fish and mushrooms (purines in them are in an easily digestible form);
- offal lungs and brains, liver and kidneys;
- meat-based sauces and canned foods;
- animal fats;
- garden crops from the legume family beans and peas, beans and lentils, soybeans;
- smoked meats, all types of sausages.
There are foods that affect acidity in the body. To prevent a sharp increase in the amount of acid in the tissues, you should also exclude from the diet such foods as:
- spices, mustard, pepper, horseradish;
- vegetable-based sauces;
- spinach, fresh herbs, sorrel;
- salted fish and various dishes with its content;
- drinks containing alcohol (especially wine and beer);
- products containing significant amounts of butter and cocoa;
- salty and spicy cheeses.
It is necessary to restrict patients in the intake of table salt and fats in order to prevent the accumulation of urate in the tissues.
Under no circumstances should you eat fried foods for gout.
List of Foods Allowed for Gout
Purine bases are found in low amounts in milk, Swiss cheese, chicken eggs, bread, caviar, walnuts, and hazelnuts. You can eat millet and carrots, pearl barley and buckwheat. During the diet, you can eat a small portion of fish or meat prepared by baking or boiling once every seven days.
Increasing the amount of fluid you drink will help the patient get rid of uric acid compounds. In this case, you need to use only purified or boiled water.
It is imperative to reduce the nutritional level of food consumed by patients with gout. With concomitant obesity, especially. With this disease, you can include small quantities of tomatoes in your diet. From seasonings it is recommended to use only bay leaf for the preparation of dietary dishes.
Fruits and vegetables are very useful in case of gout, but only in raw form. Sometimes the patient needs fasting days. At the same time, it is recommended to drink only fruit and vegetable juices during the day, and the use of ascorbic acid should also be included.
Gout Fasting
During exacerbations of this unpleasant disease, some patients independently decide on treatment by fasting to cleanse their body of excess purines. But, this decision in the diet is completely unjustified. With this practice, there is a sharp deterioration in the general condition of the patient. During starvation, food intake into the body stops, which makes it impossible to provide energy needs, as a result of which the consumption of its own reserves begins. In this case, the most accessible material is protein compounds. It is for this reason that at the beginning of fasting, the level of uric acid in the blood serum rapidly increases and is deposited in the synovial membrane of diseased joints, as well as in the tissues of the human body. It all ends with an exacerbation of gout.
The following also happens. The synovium of the joints accumulates significant deposits of acidic salts. In parallel with this process, urates penetrate into the glomeruli of the patient's kidney tubules, which contributes to the emergence of an acute form of a disease such as gouty nephropathy.