Does Eating Shellfish Contribute To Gout?

It’s Q&A Day at 10almonds!

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In cases where we’ve already covered something, we might link to what we wrote before, but will always be happy to revisit any of our topics again in the future too—there’s always more to say!

As ever: if the question/request can be answered briefly, we’ll do it here in our Q&A Thursday edition. If not, we’ll make a main feature of it shortly afterwards!

So, no question/request too big or small 😎

❝I have a question about seafood as healthy, doesn’t eating shellfish contribute to gout?❞

It can do! Gout (a kind of inflammatory arthritis characterized by the depositing of uric acid crystals in joints) has many risk factors, and diet is one component, albeit certainly the most talked-about one.

First, you may be wondering: isn’t all arthritis inflammatory? Since arthritis is by definition the inflammation of joints, this is a reasonable question, but when it comes to classifying the kinds, “inflammatory” arthritis is caused by inflammation, while “non-inflammatory” arthritis (a slightly confusing name) merely has inflammation as one of its symptoms (and is caused by physical wear-and-tear). For more information, see:

• Tips For Avoiding/Managing Rheumatoid Arthritis ←inflammatory
• Tips For Avoiding/Managing Osteoarthritis ← “non-inflammatory”

As for gout specifically, top risk factors include:

• Increasing age: risk increases with age
• Being male: women do get gout, but much less often
• Hypertension: all-cause hypertension is the biggest reasonably controllable factor

There’s not a lot we can do about age (but of course, looking after our general health will tend to slow biological aging, and after all, diseases only care about the state of our body, not what the date on the calendar is).

As for sex, this risk factor is hormones, and specifically has to do with estrogen and testosterone’s very different effects on the immune system (bearing in mind that chronic inflammation is a disorder of the immune system). However, few if any men would take up feminizing hormone therapy just to lower their gout risk!

That leaves hypertension, which happily is something that we can all (barring extreme personal circumstances) do quite a bit about. Here’s a good starting point:

Hypertension: Factors Far More Relevant Than Salt

…and for further pointers:

How To Lower Your Blood Pressure (Cardiologists Explain)

As for diet specifically (and yes, shellfish):

The largest study into this (and thus, one of the top ones cited in a lot of other literature) looked at 47,150 men with no history of gout at the baseline.

So, with the caveat that their findings could have been different for women, they found:

• Eating meat in general increased gout risk
  • Narrowing down specific meats: beef, pork, and lamb were the worst offenders
• Eating seafood in general increased gout risk
  • Narrowing down specific seafoods: all seafoods increased gout risk within a similar range
  • As a specific quirk of seafoods: the risk was increased if the man had a BMI under 25
• Eating dairy in general was not associated with an increased risk of gout
  • Narrowing down specific dairy foods: low-fat dairy products such as yogurt were associated with a decreased risk of gout
• Eating purine-rich vegetables in general was not associated with an increased risk of gout
  • Narrowing down to specific purine-rich vegetables: no purine-rich vegetable was associated with an increase in the risk of gout

Dairy products were included in the study, as dairy products in general and non-fermented dairy products in particular are often associated with increased inflammation. However, the association was simply not found to exist when it came to gout risk.

Purine-rich vegetables were included in the study, as animal products highest in purines have typically been found to have the worst effect on gout. However, the association was simply not found to exist when it came to plants with purines.

You can read the full study here:

Purine-Rich Foods, Dairy and Protein Intake, and the Risk of Gout in Men

So, the short answer to your question of “doesn’t eating shellfish contribute to the risk of gout” is:

Yes, it can, but occasional consumption probably won’t result in gout unless you have other risk factors going against you.

If you’re a slim male 80-year-old alcoholic smoker with hypertension, then definitely do consider skipping the lobster, but honestly, there may be bigger issues to tackle there.

And similarly, obviously skip it if you have a shellfish allergy, and if you’re vegan or vegetarian or abstain from shellfish for religious reasons, then you can certainly live very healthily without ever having any.

See also: Do We Need Animal Products, To Be Healthy?

For most people most of the time, a moderate consumption of seafood, including shellfish if you so desire, is considered healthy.

As ever, do speak with your own doctor to know for sure, as your individual case may vary.

For reference, this question was surely prompted by the article:

Lobster vs Crab – Which is Healthier?

Take care!