Gout from Homebrew?

Heard a coworker today stating that his father was diagnosed with Gout... even worse, they contributed it to his homebrew and the fact that he's been drinking the stuff for so long.

Any truth to the tail?

As a disclaimer, I'll state that it probably won't really matter to me anyway. I've already considered having a child for the intensive purposes of someday having the availability of a spare liver, so in the simplest sense of the word, gout is merely a hiccup along the road of life.

Sure Enough.
Home brew has actually helped me control my diet. If I eat carelessly, the home brew sure causes me to get the gout a lot easier. I choose to eliminate the foods rather than the beer.

According to the font of all wisdom Wikipedia it's from rich foods, alcohol, fat, lead, etc. May have been drinking that caused this case but certainly not specifically homebrew.

Gout - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

an episode of gout can be kicked up by heavy drinking. it is unclear weather moderate (one or two drinks a day) contribute to gout. Foods rich in Purines will set off an episode (organ meats, meats with high constituent nuclear material).

Gout does not distinguish commercial brew from home brew from vodka.

found this online... Not sure how reputable:

What's this got to do with homebrew?
Beer is the only alcoholic beverage with a measurable purine content
(ref 1) (despite what many diet books may tell you!). The primary
purines in beer are the nucleosides guanosine and adenosine, and derive
from the
breakdown of malt proteins. Beer may contain up to 150mg/l of these two
(2). All malt beers tend to have higher purine content than those made
with lower protein adjuncts. Yeast also contains purines. Any alcoholic
drink will suppress uric acid excretion in a gouty person, hence will
elevate blood uric acid levels, but beer more so than others.
Isohumulones (from hops) have also been suggested as playing a role in
decreasing uric acid excretion (3). Drinking beer on successive days
will further suppress uric acid excretion in gouty people.

Oh yeah, the point of this was that homebrew (apparently the study was focussing on kit beer) is more of an issue than commercial beers due to its lower protein and higher sugar content

This is all garbage and heresay... My wife contracted gout last year. She was 23, very active, does not drink much, eats very healthy with very few rich foods. Gout is a build up of Uric acid crystals in and around a joint. This causes irritation and inflammation. The scientific community does not really know what causes it except that it does seem to be hereditary. It could be from almost anything, so to say it is from drinking homebrew is unfounded at best.

The medicine for gout is very effective and the relief was nearly immediate. Get some meds and keep drinking!

I'll guaran-dam-tee that Cherry juice makes it better.

would RDWHAHB be appropriate in this instance?

The purine content of 5 gal of homebre beer is negligible compared to a slice of lunch meat.

OK you asked for it:

Consumption of purine-rich foods increases the frequency of attacks in patients with gout. Alcohol, yeasty foods, oily fish, and liver have been implicated in gout attacks. A consultation with a dietitian may be helpful for such patients.

this quote is taken from
eMedicine - Gout and Pseudogout : Article by Joseph Kaplan

My dad has gout. He drinks a pile of Cherry Juice and it helps.
Looks like i'll be brewing Cherry Wheat, Cherry Chocolate Porters, Cherry IPA's, etc. etc. etc.

Some people are going to have problems with gout with or without beer and with or without eating right, but a lot of times it is diet related and I strongly agree with Big Kahuna on how to deal with that type of problem.

If you keep your beer and adjust your diet you are doing yourself a big favor anyway because most of us in this country are slowly killing ourselves with what we eat. It’s no coincidence that as the availability of fast cheap food has increased, which it has significantly for the last 40 years, the amount of money spent on health care has skyrocketed proportionately. A significant majority of western health problems are directly associated with what we eat. High blood pressure, diabetes, heart disease and cancer can all be significantly reduced through simple diet adjustments. And I don’t mean eating salads the rest of your life either. Switching to grass fed beef, pasture raised chicken, and staying away from HFCS will get you 50% down the road.

Too much of anything is not good, especially alcohol, but a healthy person who eats right and “drinks responsibly” as they say, shouldn’t have gout problems. Unless gout is hereditary or you are pre-disposed to it, I don’t think your homebrew should bother you, but believe me all that Taco Bell and Whataburger will.

Dennis

I have gout. I'm 29 and have had it for about 6 years. When mine gets kicked up bad I am incapacitated until it subsides. I've had to go to the emergency room for shots before. It is MISERABLE.

The best part is that most people don't know what it is, they just think it sounds like something funny, so they like to run their mouths.

All that being said, the homebrew is worth any MILD flareups it may cause. NOTHING is worth the big daddy flareups.

Not to outright call BS, I can speak from my personal experience. Homebrew does not affect it at all, but an excess of red meat sets me off.
Just my 2 cents...