Are Cherries Effective For Treating Gout?

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The small round red luscious cherries are known for its sweet and sometimes sour unique taste. But, little did we know that this fruit is also considered as a food that treats gout. Yes, you read it right. Keep reading to confirm this fact

In this articles, we will explain the effectiveness of cherry for treating gout.

The Hype

The internet is going wild knowing that cherries are being used as a remedy for treating gout. Various websites and blogs cover the story of how these cherries can effectively relieve the misery of every gout patient. It is said that a lot of different ingredients are mixed together with cherries to form various brews ranging from the catchiest to the weirdest. As an example, we would like to mention the weird combination of Turmeric and cherry supplements which is said to be a very effective remedy to treat gout.

What is the real deal between cherries and gout?

It is still not confirmed if cherries are really effective in treating gout. But in here we will site the real deal between cherries and this annoying condition called gout.

Cherry is a fruit of a plant that belongs to the genus Prunus. It is a drupe or a fleshy kind of fruit that has thin skin and a seed inside a stone. Cherries are high in Vitamin C. As a matter of fact, a cup of cherries contains 16% of the recommended daily Vitamin C intake of a person. According to a study, increasing your Vitamin C intake with 500 mg can lower the risk of you having gout. On the other hand, a small amount of vitamin C is not effective in lowering uric acid levels in the body. Furthermore, a small amount of vitamin C from the cherry supplements available in the market is considered useless.

Cherries are also rich in bioflavonoids, which is true and undeniable. Specifically, it is rich in the flavonoid anthocyanin as its bright red color suggests. Flavonoids are supposed to act like NSAIDs because it inhibits cyclooxygenase enzyme. These enzymes are responsible for inducing pain and inflammation. Hence, preventing these enzymes to be produced can remove the most torturous aspects of gout.

However, the antioxidant capacity of cherries, which it utilized to inhibit cyclooxygenase, was only proven in an in vitro research. This means that it was only tested and proven in a test tube and not in the human body. The anti-oxidant properties of cherries are owed to the bioflavonoid content.

Unfortunately, bioflavonoids have a low bioavailability of 5%. As an example, eating 100 cherries can only give you 5 bioavailability. This means that enable to produce a single pill of cherry supplement for gout, a truck of cherries must be used. Come to think of it. If cherries acts like NSAIDs and other pain relievers, your stomach will badly hurt every time you eat it. Stomachache, ulceration, and, in worst cases, gastrointestinal bleeding are side effects of cyclooxygenase inhibition. The reason for this is because a specific type of cyclooxygenase, cox-1, is responsible for the maintenance of the epithelium of the stomach.

Another thing that makes cherry supplements considered as a remedy for gout is that it also acts like allopurinol. Allopurinol is a used to normalize high uric acid level in the blood. This chemical is known to be taken as an oral drug that can decrease high uric acid. Allopurinol is also a xanthine oxidase inhibitor. This is another property it owes to the oh-so-special bioflavonoids. But, then again, flavonoids are only 5% available. If you desire to induce the uric acid-pausing effects of cherries, you will have to eat tens of tons of them. Added to this is the fact that bioflavonoids may also cause aldehyde oxidase inhibition.

Aldehyde oxidase is a type of enzyme that undergo its process by metabolism. Up until now, the role of this type of enzyme is still not clear. All we know is that it plays a role in granting drugs a clearance to the body. But a question is still not answered. Is aldehyde oxidase responsible for allowing the entry of drugs into the body? Or disallows it? Either way, it is still considered as a bad idea to inhibit it as it can make you oversensitive to drugs. This can induce allopurinol hypersensitivity and unexpected overdose to whatever drug you are taking.

As a conclusion, we can say that cherries are not really effective in treating gout. On the other hand, we can also assure that taking cherries with gout is not also considered as dangerous.

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