It’s been a long held belief that the best way to treat gout and prevent attacks of gout was to stick to a low-purine diet. However, there are three types of purines – good purines and bad purines, as well as neutral purines – all with different effects. Some are to be avoided completely, others can be tolerated or not worried about.
Recent research indicates that the impact of purines can be very different depending on what food source they come in.
Just like we once believed that all cholesterol was bad and then learned that there is a distinction between good and bad cholesterol, we now know that there a good purines as well as bad purines. In fact, after extensive research purines can be separated into three categories.
Bad purines – Meat and fish purines have the worst impact on the risk of gout.
Neutral purines – Most vegetable purines appear not to add to the incidence of gout attacks, although a few do have high levels of bad purines equating with meats.
Good purines – Eating dairy food which contains purines lowers the risk of developing gout and of bringing on an attack of gout.
We can also split these categories further, according to the level of impact foods have on the risk of gout.
The highest levels of bad purines are found in:
Anchovies, Mussels, Kidney, Liver, Meat Extracts and Minces, Mackerel, Sardines, Grains, Gravies, Yeast and Sweetbreads
Foods with moderate to high purine levels include:
Meats – Tongue, Lamb and Mutton, Ham, Bacon and Pork, Beef, Turkey, Veal, Venison, Duck, Tripe, Goose, Chicken, Rabbit, Meat soups and broths
Seafoods – Bluefish, Carp, Codfish, Crab, Halibut, Lobster, Oysters, Shellfish, Snapper, Perch, Salmon, Trout, Tuna
Plant foods – Asparagus, Cauliflower, Kidney beans, Lentils, Lima beans, Mushrooms, Navy beans, Oatmeal, Peas, Spinach
Research on purines is continuing. It may be possible to split purines into further categories. There is also new information emerging on how purines behave during cooking.
However, just focusing on the three types of purines we know of now goes a long way to differentiating the foods we eat to manage our intake of good purines and bad purines.