Many of the ways of dealing with gout inflammation and gout pain relief without using drugs are archaic. Ice packs, elevating the affected foot (if the attack is there), Epsom salts and so on really should belong in the last two centuries, not this one. But gout sufferers still have to resort to these old methods if they don’t wish (or can’t) use NSAIDs such as indomethacin or ibuprofen, or colchicine, or prednisone, and hope for the best.
There are of course natural substances such as that old stand by baking soda (bicarbonate of soda), cherries or their juices or apple cider vinegar.
But no natural substance always works, and one suspects they are less likely to work as a gout sufferer gets older. Neither are the natural remedies studied, except occasionally cherries. So the natural remedies rely on pass-it-along testimonials, which I’m glad to say you can find on the Internet, or the experience of individual doctors. Testimonials have their weak points, but the more there are, the more likely they are to be accurate.
But there is one treatment for gout pain relief, and gout inflammation, that does have a considerable body of scientific research behind it, and the published work of a respected biochemist who has spent a lifetime studying the omega -3 and omega -6 fatty acids and gamma linolenic acid (GLA).
The respected biochemist is Barry Sears PhD, best selling author of the Zone Diet series nutrition books. And the discovery of how eicosanoids work, won a Nobel Prize for the scientists who discovered it about 25 years ago.
The treatment does have Internet posted testimonials and testimonials in a book. It’s complicated and time consuming to understand, but here’s a simple explanation.
Relief for inflammation can be achieved by improving the balance of eicosanoid hormones your cells produce and dispatch. You need to produce more of the “good” ones such as PGE1 and PGE3 and less of the “bad” ones, such as PGE2 and Thromboxane A2, to mention just two of the better known ones. A corticosteroid used in gout pain treatment, prednisone, works by knocking out eicosanoids for a period. Aspirin knocks out fewer eicosanoids than prednisone.
But you can see the connection between fish oils and GLA, which stimulate more “good” eicosanoids and fewer “bad” ones, and the way prednisone and aspirin work. (Gout sufferers should not take low dose aspirin. It can cause gout attacks).
So how do you do this? Basically, but there are other refinements which you may require, you need to do three things.
1. Take pharmaceutical grade fish oil in dosages of most likely 5 – 10 grams a day. I stress pharmaceutical grade. The fish oils in your local supermarket, almost certainly, are not good enough and probably not safe enough at these levels.
2. Eat slow cooked oatmeal (whole grain porridge oats) three to five times weekly, for their gamma linolenic acid (GLA). Not instant or five minutes-to-cook oats. These take 30 minutes to cook. Oats are the only food which are a direct source of GLA, except for mothers’ breast milk and baby milk powders with added GLA.
3. Reduce your insulin level by restricting carbohydrates or eat a protein: carbohydrate ratio of 0.75 at every meal. That is, for every three grams of protein, eat four grams of carbohydrate.
These three dietary steps will alter the balance of your eicosanoids in favour of more “good” and fewer “bad.” How will you know? By doing an AA: EPA ratio test, before the start of this treatment and after a month or two of it. Arachidonic acid (AA) is the building block of “bad” eicosanoids in Dr. Sears’s theory, and EPA (from fish oils) is the major determinant of producing good ones.
More EPA and less AA means more “good” eicosanoids and fewer “bad” ones. Result? You greatly increase the chances that gout inflammation and gout pain will be significantly reduced on your next gout attack.
One or two testimonials have used the words gout “went away” or “has gone.” Why have they said this? If the reduction of insulin has ended insulin resistance, which studies have shown is one cause of gout because insulin inhibits uric acid excretion, then gout attacks could indeed end.
When your uric acid level falls to 6.0 mg/dL (357 mmol/L) or lower, this is the level at which, experts think, the MSU crystals that cause the attacks begin to dissolve. At the same time the production of more “good” eicosanoids and fewer “bad” ones deliver pain and inflammation relief.
So there is one natural remedy for gout which has some real science behind it. For complete details about fish oils + GLA treatment, read The Omega RX Zone by Barry Sears PhD
February 26th, 2009
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