Yesterday, Director Tao Xiaojuan from the Department of Rheumatology and Immunology at the Hangzhou Red Cross Hospital asked a reporter to issue a reminder to people who enjoy late-night snacks: mainly seafood with beer, as this can easily trigger gout.
Director Tao saw a 42-year-old male gout patient a couple of days ago. His right big toe was swollen and painful, making it impossible for him to wear shoes.
It turned out that for the past three to four summers, the man had a habit of eating late-night snacks at a seafood stall near his residential community. Every time, he would drink beer until he was nearly drunk before going home.
Director Tao explained that gout is a metabolic disease—a group of conditions caused by increased uric acid in the blood that leads to tissue damage. When the concentration of uric acid in the blood is too high, it deposits in joints, soft tissues, cartilage, and kidneys in the form of sodium salts, causing conditions like arthritis and kidney stones.
In the human body, there is a substance called purine, which mainly exists in the form of purine nucleotides and plays a crucial role in energy supply, metabolic regulation, and serving as a component of coenzymes. When its metabolism becomes disrupted, it can lead to gout. This is because the end product of purine metabolism after a series of changes is uric acid.
Uric acid has no physiological function in the human body. Under normal circumstances, two-thirds of the uric acid produced by the body is excreted by the kidneys, while the remaining one-third is expelled through the intestines.
Seafood is a high-protein, low-fat food that contains two components: purine and nucleotide. Beer contains vitamin B1, which acts as a catalyst that breaks down purine and nucleotide. Consuming seafood while drinking beer causes a chemical reaction between purine and nucleotide, leading to an increase in uric acid levels in the blood.
Director Tao said that gout used to be more common in people over 40, but there is now a trend of it affecting younger individuals. In clinical practice, patients in their twenties and thirties are also frequently encountered.