Arthritis foundation is the largest non-profit making private organization working over arthritis. It does various activities as creating awareness about arthritis and the treatment options available, conducting research, and providing support to the patients. It funds and conducts research over different types of arthritis. Accordingly, it conducts research over gout, which is one of the types of arthritis. Some of the latest findings in the research conducted by arthritis foundation are given below.
Over weight and obesity have a very close relation with gout. Research was conducted for finding out what percentage of patients of gout are obese and it has been found that almost 60% of the people who develop gout are over weight or obese.
Another thing that has come up is the role of soft drinks. Arthritis Foundation has published on its website that the sugary soft drinks increase the risk of development of gout. It was found out that the people who take two or more servings of such soft drinks in a day have up to 85% more chances than the ones who do not. On the other hand it was also found out taking sugary fruit juices also increase the chances of gout however as their benefits outweigh this and therefore people should not try to avoid them.
Arthritis foundation has displayed one more news that menopause in women also increases the chances of gout. Therefore, it is advisable for women to be careful and take the right preventive measures.
Apart from the factors responsible for elevating the risk for gout, Arthritis Foundation has displayed some other facts as well.
The people who develop gout are at a lesser risk of developing Parkinson’s disease. Earlier also some studies suggested that there is a converse relation between both of these diseases. However, now a detailed study was conducted examining a number of patients. The results of it study showed decrease in the occurrences of Parkinson’s disease in gout patients.
One more similar, news displayed by Arthritis Foundation is that, the gout patients are at a higher risk of Mini-strokes. A recent research has shown that the increase in the uric acid levels, which lead also, increases the chances of Mini-strokes. Mini-stroke occurs when oxygen supply for the brain is gets cut off due to some reason. The older people with high uric acid levels are at very high risk of Mini-stroke. The Mini-stroke can be fatal and therefore this study stresses on the need to find out effective method to reduce the uric acid levels in the patients.
