There are billions of dollars spent every year to tell you why you need a healthy lifestyle, but here is one more reason - the risk of gout. Some people may not even have heard of gout but it can cause serious pain and problems if you get the disease. Gout is a form of arthritis and affects over 5 people out of every 1,000. Gout won't kill you, so it doesn't get the name recognition of cancer or aids, but the sufferers will attest to the potency of the disease.

It is caused by excess uric acid in your bloodstream, that forms into sharp crystals. The crystals flow in your blood until something causes them to catch around a joint where they start to accumulate. The uric acid crystals have a party of sorts, and start to irritate the neighboring tissue. The party doesn't stop, so the tissue gets severely irritated and becomes seriously inflamed. Very suddenly, usually in the middle of the night, you have a big toe or other joint feeling like it is really on fire and burning up. Pain comes out of the blue, it is extremely intense and often last for a week or more.

The intense pain and the inflammation in the affected part can be dehabilitating, usually the toe or foot. It can mean no walking other than crutches for a week or so. The inflammed area is so sensitive that anything that comes into contact with it will cause extreme pain and discomfort. Sufferers even report the duvet on their bed touching them causing severe pain during an attack. Gout attacks, but it then subsides for a little while and returns with a vengeance another time.

If you take the holistic approach to gout, there are several lifestyle adaptations available for prevention or mitigation of gout. All of the recommended prevention methods are going to help you in other areas of your health as well. The first is losing weight and keeping it off, as well as a reasonable level of fitness. Extra weight on the body can lead to increased uric acid production in the body and increased risk of gout.

Your lifestyle can assist the body natural ability to remove any excess uric acid. One of the easiet ways to help is to make sure you drink plenty of fluids like water and stay hydrated. Water is essential to your body eliminating waste well, including uric acid. Another obvious part of this lifestyle change is to limit the amount of alcohol you consume, especially drinks you consume regularly. The odd drink won't cause massive problems, but you may be surprised how much you actually drink and long term drinking can increase your chances massively.

Luckily there are guidelines on the types of foods to eat or avoid to help prevent gout. Purines are the substance that your body turns into uric acid. Wild meats and foods that involve the organs in an animal are very high in purines so they may help create excess uric acid. Some special foods like livers, kidneys etc should be avoided completely or at a minimum severely limited to maximise gout prevention. Shellfish and small oily fish such as anchovies, herring, and sardines are on the list to avoid as well.

If you follow all these changes you should be in pretty good shape overall and feeling a lot better not just because you are protecting yourself from gout, but because you are healthier overall!