gout

[wayne]

Does anyone have experience with producing a guanosine free beer(guanosine is a gout causing purine in beer.)
I have found an article on the web where thay have patented a process using enzymes to change the wort. It is a little too scientific for me! It looks like they are using an enzyme from calf spleen the dont tell us which brewers supply carries it.
It seems that gout is causing many people to stop drinking beer in favor of distilled liquor. What a shame!

Thanks, Wayne

[wailingguitar]

If you drink enough beer to get gout, you have worse problems than gout!

[jarviw]

If you drink enough beer to get gout, you have worse problems than gout!

Well, I understand where you are coming from, but this is really not fair to say.
Drinking does not cause gout per se, and gout is highly heritable -- that is, genetically speaking, some people are just more prone to gout than others... of course, dietary habits and life styles are also important factors.

I personally know quite a few beer lovers suffering from gout -- they really have to watch their food and amount of beer they are drinking. Not pleasant!


My understanding is that purines come mostly from the yeast... so effective yeast management, filtration, as well as not using bottle conditioning all help with reducing purines.

Wayne, if you want, you can send me the article and I will see if I can find more information on this for you.

[beertje46]

From Wikipedia:
Gout (also called metabolic arthritis) is a disease created by a buildup of uric acid. In this condition, monosodium urate or uric acid crystals are deposited on the articular cartilage of joints, tendons and surrounding tissues due to elevated concentrations of uric acid in the blood stream. This provokes an inflammatory reaction of these tissues.

Gout article on Wiki Of interest to beer drinkers in section 5.2.1.

More:
In a large prospective study, high consumption of meat and seafood were found associated with an elevated risk of gout onset (41% and 50%, respectively). High consumption of dairy products, high in protein but very low in DNA and RNA, was associated with a 44% decrease in the incidence of gout. Consumption of the more purine-rich vegetables or a high protein diet per se had no significant correlation.

Consumption of beer is associated with a 49% increase in relative risk per daily 12-oz serving. By contrast, consumption of spirits was associated with only a 15% increase in relative risk, and no association at all was found with consumption of wine.

So eating lots of red meat and seafood can put you at higher risk than beer.

[wayne]

gout free beer

http://www.freepatentsonline.com/6013288.html

this is the article i mentioned earlier.

[scrubb]

It looks like someone has been working on this problem; apparently they have a patent for producing beer with a low purine content:

http://www.freepatentsonline.com/6013288.html

Here's a better description:

http://www.patentstorm.us/patents/6013288-description.html

I don't have any idea what they're talking about, but maybe someone else does.

[Moonlight]

One important item about drinking beer with gout is to avoid the yeast! No to hefe's, No to bottle conditioned sediment. Drinking lots of pure (read the label) dark cherry juice can be an amazing relief. And the usual for everything, drink lots and lots of water. I suspect Krieks were developed with gout in mind. Avoid eating mushrooms, too.

[jarviw]

hmmm...

so according to the research cited in the patent article, the purine found in fermented beverages are mostly in the form of nucleosides, or basically DNA -- and annoyingly yeast doesn't take it up readily. By removing the phosphate sugar base (what this patent claims to do) it became simple purine, which is readily eaten up by yeast, and therefore removing it from the beer during fermentation.

okay then... I thought most organisms would just love to eat up all nutrients, but apparently our little buddy Sacchromyces cerevisiae aren't capable of doing this.
Plenty of bacteria, however, including Lactobacillus (as they cited in the article), are capable of doing this and take up the purines... so I guess Kriek is made to help with gout huh!

However, clinically, we still don't know how much this process actually help with gout, since beer is not the major dietary purine source (1L of beer has about 1/100~1/10 of purines as red meat and seafood.) Also, although research is lacking, alcohol (as ethanol) has always been linked to acute gout episodes, and perhaps it's due to the alcohol metabolites interacting with purine metabolism rather than purine intake alone.

I would be interested to see if their patent actually helps with gout... rather than just reduces purine content in the bottle. But I wouldn't really trust Suntory's research on this topic.

............

Drink lambic!

[wayne]

grant writing

If someone out there knows how to write a grant proposal this would be one worth persuing!
The baby boomers are retireing and they will most likley spend a lot of time at the brewery (you can only watch so much day-time tv). A great profit could be made by offering beer that does not cause increased incidence for gout. Lets Beat AB to the market!

Thanks,
Wayne

[Moonlight]

We humans are infinitely more versatile in our diet than most single celled creatures. Much of what differentiates them taxonomically is their varying dietary abilities. They have no liver! Even at Thanksgiving dinner, I suspect you didn't eat everything, but Aunt Mabel ate all the pickled beets and Uncle Fred was a glutton for the turkey gizzards. In nature, there is something that will eventually eat anything. Likely the myriad of creatures in Lambics included at least one that could eat all the purine base-rich nutrients.

Not all Lactobacillus have the same dietary abilities.

Regarding meat having more purine sources than beer, it's not just the quantity that matters.. I do know that it is easier to lower the amount of meat in your diet than lower beer consumption! I believe it is more that the ratios of amino acids in beer are out of proportion to the purine-laden side. Our bodies require a certain ratio of amino acids to rebuild a human, and those in meat are closer to what we need, so we assimilate them more completely. There is one (memory failure as to which) high purine base amino acid out of proportion in beer that we take in, but have too little use for it as human building block, so we break it down for energy and dump the waste product-uric acid into our blood, then out the urine. With gout, we can't get it into the urine as fast as we dump it into the blood, so it accumulates there. Hence, drink more water to flush it out.
Ethanol does not contribute to creating more uric acid, but it is found in beverages often high in purine bases, and further, it slows the kidney's ability to remove it from the blood and pee it out. Really though, with some understanding, one doesn't need to give up beer.

Drink lambic, especially Kriek!
Wayne-just have info for them/us on how to be able to drink beer without gout!

[Capt. Bob]

We should be concerned now about craft beer causing gout. Really.....
no, Really???
I've also heard that if you break a bottle of beer and rake the glass across your wrist it will cause severe bleeding...I think more research needs to be done in this area also!

Bob

[tarmadilo]

We should be concerned now about craft beer causing gout. Really.....
no, Really???
I've also heard that if you break a bottle of beer and rake the glass across your wrist it will cause severe bleeding...I think more research needs to be done in this area also!

Bob

There's a gout epidemic sweeping the land???

I've also heard that beer contains the deadly toxin alcohol!!!

Sigh...

Tim

[BeersmithMT]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Capt. Bob
We should be concerned now about craft beer causing gout. Really.....
no, Really???
I've also heard that if you break a bottle of beer and rake the glass across your wrist it will cause severe bleeding...I think more research needs to be done in this area also!

Bob

There's a gout epidemic sweeping the land???

I've also heard that beer contains the deadly toxin alcohol!!!

Sigh...

Tim

I have to chime in and take exception to the last couple of posts. As a brewer, you should be knowledgable about your beer's possible impacts to a consumer. It's not that you have to "worry" about your beer's potential impacts, or change the products you make. Its about being able to educate the consumer in regards to your beer. An informed consumer is better able to make quality decisions about their consumption behavior.

On the personal side, I have been a brewer of unfiltered beer for almost 15 years, and do occasionally experience some gout. There have been many fabulous posts on this thread already about the relationship between diet, genetics, beer, yeast, hydration and gout.

I think the key element for me has been hydration level. I can drink significant amounts of unfiltered beer, eat red meat, seafood, asparagus, mushrooms, cauliflower (all purine-rich) without any trouble if I stay well hydrated. Combining significant amount of the above minus the water, can lead to trouble. So much for the majority of my liquid consumption being coffee in the morning and beer in the afternoon....