The drop : still alive and still dangerous

Valentyn_Volkov/epictura

Published the 19.10.2017 to 08h47

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Keywords :

goutterisque cardiovasculaireAcide uric

This is the back sneaky disease that we thought was forgotten. One of the best specialists in the world is French. Professor Thomas Bardin, head of the rheumatology department of the hospital Lariboisière in Paris, wants to be alarmist. According to him, of course, gout is treated well since that one has many drugs reducing uric acid in the blood. It is curable and should not be just a bad memory. But it has not disappeared, quite the contrary, it is the same recipe ! Because of our new eating habits make it more frequent.

A cardiovascular risk

The drop becomes a disease all the more serious in that it promotes high blood pressure and cardiovascular disease. According to professor Bardin, it ” poses a real public health problem that fits into the diseases linked to poor nutrition in the same way as obesity and diabetes.” The “queen of disease” and the “evil of kings” ! Of the nicknames given to the time when the people were hungry and where only the rich and powerful could supposedly be victims. The gout has kept this image outdated disease caused by the good expensive. The Christmas holidays were no doubt reminded of this sad truth to many mature men, a little bit wrapped up but, if it is aggravated by a poor diet, it affects in reality, all social categories.

A deposit of uric acid

Gout strikes when a in the blood an excess of uric acid for a long time and this excess uric acid will cause deposits in different tissues of the body. Will then form crystals in the principal organs, and particularly the joints. If the crystals form in the joints, they are at the origin of crises extremely painful : the pain is violent and intolerable. The toe, which becomes red, swollen, untouchable, is the main victim. For a reason which science has still not properly explained (lower temperature at the ends ?), even if the ankles, fingers or knees may be affected, it is predominantly the base of the big toe which is the preferred site of painful crises in man. In the past, when there was no treatment, he had to take his evil in patience, wait until the crisis ends, which was always the case. But the repetition of these crises ended, at the end of a few years, to the destruction of the joints.

A defect in degradation or elimination

This uric acid comes from the deterioration of the noblest part of our body, the DNA. When a cell dies, the nucleus which contains our bar-code genetic, consisting of DNA, is eliminated in the form of uric acid. The number of cells that trépassent every day is important – just for the brain, we lose 70 million neurons per year ! – production of uric acid, therefore, is not negligible. Everyone should suffer from gout, but, fortunately, in healthy people, the kidney ensures the grain and rejects perfectly this acid in the urine. However, a diet rich in calories, beer, sodas, sweets, sausages and offal, seafood, an excess of aperitifs or digestives, and the uric acid will build up in the blood and crystallize in the joints.

An old story that continues

We know the drop since the Middle Ages, but we do know that the last few years that, to expand it, it is not enough to overeat, but that it is possible to inherit : it is the discovery of the mutation of a gene involved in the elimination of uric acid in the urine that can be passed from parents to children. Gout is predominantly a disease of the family and not only a disease-deserved. It affects especially the man, because the women are partially protected before menopause by their hormones, and particularly the middle-aged man, because it takes several decades of excess uric acid in the blood which deposits and crystals form.

You can treat gout

One can lower the uric acid in the blood and, below a certain threshold, the uric acid is in excess in the tissues goes back into the blood, there to be degraded and eliminated. Of new drugs used to good dose know perfectly eliminate the excessive inventories of the gouty. But according to Thomas Bardin, the patient, his doctor, uses, doses too low, and only too often the disappearance of the symptoms, leaving the excess uric acid to live his life in peace, and cause, in addition to the onset of new painful crises, problems in other organs and in particular heart complications. According to an american study, published in 2008, in 9 of 105 men followed 17 years later, the presence of a raindrop amounts to 35% of the mortality from myocardial infarction and increased by 21 % in cardiovascular mortality…