Tomatoes can trigger gout attacks say scientists

TOMATOES can trigger gout, according to researchers.

Their study has found a biological basis for a theory that has been reported by sufferers.

Gout is a painful and debilitating form of arthritis that affects about three times more men than women. Once a person has gout, eating certain foods can cause it to flare up.

Researchers noticed a large number of gout sufferers believed tomatoes to be one of the trigger foods.

They surveyed 2,051 New Zealanders with clinically verified gout. Of those who took part, 71 per cent reported having one or more food triggers.

Tomatoes were listed as a trigger in 20 per cent of the cases.

One of the researchers, Tanya Flynn, a genetics PHD student at Otago University in New Zealand, said tomatoes were found to be the fourth most commonly mentioned trigger, after seafood, alcohol and red meat.

She said: “We thought it important to find a biological reason for this to add weight to what gout patients are already saying.”

The researchers pooled and analysed data from 12,720 male and female members of three long-running health studies in the United States.

The findings, published in the journal BMC Musculoskeletal Disorders, showed that eating tomatoes was linked to higher levels of uric acid in the blood, which is the major underlying cause of gout.

Ms Flynn said that while their research was not geared to prove that tomatoes trigger gout attacks, it did suggest they can alter uric acid levels to a degree comparable to other commonly accepted gout trigger foods.

She said: “We found that the positive association between eating tomato and uric acid levels was on a par with that of consuming seafood, red meat, alcohol or sugar-sweetened drinks.”

Ms Flynn emphasised the most important thing people with gout could do to prevent attacks was take a drug – such as Allopurinol – that is effective at reducing uric acid levels.