1, what is gout?

Gout is a group of diseases caused by purine metabolism disorder. Its clinical features are hyperuricemia and recurrent gouty acute arthritis, tophi deposition, tophi chronic arthritis and joint deformity. It often involves the kidney, and causes the formation of chronic interstitial nephritis and kidney calculi uric acid. According to the causes of elevated uric acid in blood, it can be divided into primary and secondary types. The cause of primary gout is hereditary because of congenital purine metabolism disorder. The etiology of secondary gout can be caused by kidney disease, leukemia, drugs, food and other reasons. It is more common in men and menopausal women, with more men than women, and the ratio of male to female is 20 1. The main clinical manifestations of this disease are joint swelling, heat pain, recurrent attacks and inflexible joint movements, which belong to the category of arthralgia syndrome in traditional Chinese medicine. In Neijing, gout is pain, and on blood syndrome: "gout, inhumanity, pain in limbs, now named gout, was arthralgia syndrome in ancient times"

2. What causes gout?

There is a substance called purine in the human body, and metabolic disorder will cause gout. Purine undergoes a series of metabolic changes, and the final product is called acid. Uric acid has no physiological function in human body. Under normal circumstances, 2/3 of uric acid produced in the body is excreted by the kidney, and 1/3 is excreted by the large intestine. Uric acid is constantly produced and excreted in the body, so it maintains a certain concentration in the blood. There are many enzymes involved in the synthesis and decomposition of purine. Due to the disorder of congenital abnormal enzyme metabolism, the total production of uric acid increases or the excretion decreases, which can cause hyperuricemia. When the concentration of uric acid in blood is too high, uric acid is deposited in joints, soft tissues, cartilage and kidneys in the form of sodium salt, which causes tissue inflammation and becomes the nemesis of gout. If the treatment is not thorough, it may lead to joint swelling, deformity, stiffness, ecchymosis and nodules around the joint, gouty kidney calculi, gouty renal failure, gouty coronary heart disease, hyperlipidemia, hypertension, urinary calculi and other visceral diseases that endanger patients' lives and even lead to their termination.