Drop Acid: The Surprising New Science of Uric Acid – by Dr. David Perlmutter

A lot of books have “the new science of” in the title or subtitle, and most of the time the science is not, in fact, new. So, how does this one measure up?

The science is so new that, in fact, it’s largely still in the hypothesis stage. Dr. Perlmutter acknowledges this, and simply makes the argument that it is a reasonable hypothesis, and that in time, it’ll either be validated or refuted.

Meanwhile, he advises us about (well-established) health risks associated with high uric acid levels, and recommends we avoid foods high in purines (as is also current scientific consensus), as well as fructose that has been stripped of fiber (scientific consensus holds for that fructose-without-fiber is indeed terrible for metabolic health, but does not hold that it has anything to do with uric acid levels), and grains (current scientific consensus holds that whole grains are positively healthy for most people, and again, does not connect them to uric acid levels).

The potential tie between metabolic health and uric acid levels is something this book explores a lot, before going on to give us a week-by-week guide to reducing our uric acid levels. There are also recipes, but not many.

The style is light pop-science, very easy to read, little hard science. There is a bibliography, but more often the references are for cited statistics, rather than for scientific claims, which frequently go unsupported by the science that has yet to be done.

Bottom line: this is a very speculative book, but it makes a reasonable case, and is at the very least an interesting read with some ideas one won’t find in every second dietary health book out there.

Click here to check out Drop Acid, and drop your uric acid levels!