Gout is a common form of arthritis. This disease can affect anyone, but it mostly happens to men however, women who has had menopause also can be in a high risk of being infected by gout. The pain that is caused by gout usually can be very severe. It usually also come very sudden without any signs before.
This disease attack your joint, most of the time happens in the joint at the base of your big toe. If this happens, the pain might wake you up in the middle of the night and will also involve some redness and swelling at the affected joint. The tenderness of the affected join can make pain even more unbearable.
The discomfort that this disease causes might linger for sometimes if it is not treated properly, and eventually it can limit your joint movement. When you experience this sudden pain, call your doctor straight away as untreated gout can eventually cause joint damage.
Even though gout might be cured at a point, however, this disease might repeat every now and then varying to a person’s health condition and their diet. So it is important to consume food that can prevent you from experiencing gout more often. One of them is all sorts of berries including blueberries.
To understand why blueberries is good for those suffering with gout, we want to take a look at 2 things, first the cause of gout as well as the content that blueberries carry that can make this fruit a good source of gout remedies.
THE CAUSE OF GOUT
High level in uric acid in your body can be one of the most significant reasons why gout occurs. Uric acid in your body can also occur because your body digested too much food that contains purine. Too much uric acid in your body can make your kidney work so hard and in the end it might not be able to filter it hence it can eventually create crystals. These crystals might settle in your body and cause gout.
As now we know that food that contains purines can be the cause of gout, hence if we have experience gout once we might want to avoid red meat, mackerel, herring, anchovies, tuna, scallops, lobster and shrimp. Even though those foods are good for your health if consumed reasonably, they also contain high level of uric acid and once digested in your body can create purines that might cause gout to repeat.
Some other more obvious food and beverage that you might need to avoid is the high level sugar food and beverage, especially those with artificial sugar as they also can hardened the job of your kidney and can create some crystals as well that can linger in your joint and cause gout.
Limited consumption of the above mentioned ingredients is recommended for your healthier diet that can avoid gout. In addition to that, adding food that is high in fiber as well as any anti-oxidant substance such as blueberries can also be useful to your anti-gout diet.
BLUEBERRIES AND RELIEFING GOUT
This tiny little dark sinned fruit is no longer a secret can help you with your gout. This is because the anthocyanin component that is available in blueberries. This component is very powerful that can make the blueberries have dark purplish blue skin color and also can be a great help for those suffering from gout.
Anthocyanin in blueberries carries high level of anti-oxidant and this can help your cells to regenerate its self. This means all cells in your body including the one in your kidney. If the cells in your kidney have good regeneration process, this can mean maximum performance in filtering all the toxic that enters your body before it can transform into crystals.
Anti-oxidant can also help your body to detox all the free radicals and all other bad ingredients that went in and flushing it out though your excretion system. This procedure is very important in your body so that the toxins will not linger in your body and become crystals that can cause gout in the end.
The goodness of anthocyanin does not stop there. This substance is also a good anti-inflammatory substance. When you are experience gout, the swelling and the burning pain must have been the biggest discomfort that you experience. With anti-inflammatory substance, this soreness can be relieved and reduced.
Studies have also been done with result that anthocyanin can also help you to reduce the level of uric acid in your blood and in your body. If you remember that high uric acid level in your body is one of the main causes of gout, lowering the level of it means you are also lowering the risk of gout to occur again.
Not only anthocyanin, in 2003 a study that was done in Taiwan has found that folate acid in blueberries can also help to prevent a person from experiencing gout. Also its high level of water can also help to flush out all the toxic in a person’s body so that it can ease the work of their kidney and inevitably can prevent that person from gout.
Pick always the good quality of blueberries for maximum result in preventing gout. Good quality blueberries will have deep purplish blue in color and they might also have white powdery wax on its skin that is called bloom.
Washing your blueberries thoroughly is also recommended as you surely don’t want to experience other side effects of consuming unclean blueberries. You can rinse them under running water and just rub salt or baking soda all over your blueberries before rinsing again with cold fresh running water. This will remove all the bacteria that might present before.
While it is good for your health to consume blueberries to prevent gout, but it is always best to seek for professional help once you undergo the severe pain from this disease. Maintaining healthy lifestyle including routine exercise can also help you to avoid gout as well as other disease.
