How Gout can affect Children
June 30th, 2009 Posted by: Kathy Nelson
If you are one of many people who suffer from gout, then chances are that you’ve heard people saying that the is the disease of kings and that the cause of it is too much beer and rich food. This can lead people to thinking that their kids are not at risk from gout, as I’m quite sure your kids don’t drink a lot of beer.
Gout is caused by a build up of uric acid crystals around your joints, it normally starts in your big toe and can move around your body from there. Uric acid crystals have no idea how old you are and they don’t care that you are too young to experience the horrible burning pain that goes with a gout attack.
The last twenty years or so have brought about changes in children’s habits. In general, children will not spend so much time outdoors playing sports or doing exercise. They also tend to eat more processed food and beverages. Many children are not happy to drink just water, instead they prefer sodas and flavoured drinks which tend to contain a lot of fructose.
The levels of uric acid in the body can be raised by the intake of sodas and fructose. As a result of this, there has been an increase in the reported cases of gout. No longer is gout known as the disease of kings. The amount of soda and “nutritional” beverages that we drink has increased over recent years, it is a consequence that so will cases of gout.
The amount of gout attacks suffered by a person can be reduced if the right kind of diet is put in place. This isn’t really a difficult thing to do if you can remain focused. However it is only natural that the older we get, the more we get into a routine of what to eat which can often make it difficult to stick to a new diet.
You need to think about how your child’s diet will affect them not only now, but years down the line when they are older. You could be allowing them to get into bad eating habits which will stick with them for a long time. Because of this you should try to steer them away from foods or beverages which are high in their fructose content.
Because of the effect our work has on our personal lives, it can sometimes be hard to spend enough time shopping and cooking with good quality foods. We tend to go for fast foods because they are more convenient and we just haven’t got the time to ensure that our children are fed properly.
Your shopping trip is the very core of gout prevention for your family, if you don’t buy foods that are high in fructose and you don’t allow foods that are high in uric acid creating chemicals into your fridge then your family won’t be able to eat them and you are taking a huge step towards preventing not just gout, but most likely diabetes and any number of other illnesses that are caused or worsened by our diet.
