What is uric acid?
As long as you are healthy, your body naturally produces uric acid. If you eat too many purine-rich foods, it can cause high uric acid to build up in your blood. This condition is called hyperukicemia and requires treatment and is easier to treat if diagnosed early, in fact if left untreated, secondary diseases can prevail that can be fatal. Hypericemia occurs when certain medications or substances that are high in purines are broken down. Purine-rich foods include organs such as liver and kidneys, usually red meat including dark meat chicken and turkey, etc., certain fish such as mackerel, alcohol, and beverages such as coffee. If you are not healthy, especially if you have kidney problems, your kidneys may not be able to remove uric acid at the required rate, resulting in high uric acid levels, which is the main cause of gout.
Doctors generally seek to control gout through diet, however, staying away from your favorite foods, such as a juicy steak, lamb, bacon, venison, or liver with onions, is obviously easier said than done. Unfortunately, the answer is not based on a fish diet because a diet high in fish can also lead to high acid levels, especially shellfish such as prawns, mussels, and lobster. Being a vegetarian isn’t the answer either, as some vegetables are just as high in purines, including asparagus, cauliflower, mushrooms, beans, lentils, and spinach. What isn’t always realized is that even if you eat nothing but high-purine or high-protein foods, this only contributes 10% to 15% of your body’s uric acid. Most of your uric acid is produced by your own body and from two different sources: – DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid) and ATP (adenosine-5′-triphosphate) In the case of 4-base DNA: adenine (A), cytosine (C), guanine (G), and thymine (T) found in DNA, 2 of them (adenine and guanine) are purine derivatives. In the average human adult, between 50 and 70 billion cells die each day due to apoptosis, or programmed cell death. Dead cells release trillions of purine molecules into the bloodstream. Some will be reused in the formation of new cells, while most of the purines generated by DNA are sent to the liver to be broken down into uric acid and removed through the kidneys. That is why beef liver is at the top of the list of high purine foods.
In relation to ATP, we find that it is a multifunctional coenzyme used in cells to transport chemical energy within cells for metabolism. The backbone of ATP consists of a purine base, which is adenine. ATP stores the energy converted from glucose. And when the cell requires energy, ATP will release the energy by instantly breaking down a phosphate unit and turning into ADP.
In a healthy body, ADP will slowly restore energy by binding again with a phosphate unit. But, when you are under emotional and physical stress, large amounts of ATP will be consumed in a short period of time and there will not be enough time for ADP to recharge into ATP. Consequently, the excess ADP will be broken down and a large amount of purine will be produced.
A healthy body will naturally contain constant acid levels between 3.0 and 7.0 mg/DL. If the acid level is 7.0 mg/Dl or higher, uric acid treatment is required.
In an unhealthy body, where there is some predominant problem causing high uric acid levels, such as diabetes, leukemia, or acidosis, etc., it may not be possible to treat the underlying condition, therefore treating the levels is the only remedy. high uric acid directly. .
Prescription medications include those that prevent the body from absorbing acid or medications that prevent the body from producing uric acid.
Two of the most common medications include allopurinol and febuxostat, which are used to reduce or prevent the body’s production of uric acid. Probenecid reduces the rate of acid absorption and helps the body eliminate excess uric acid salt. Sulfinpyrazone lowers the levels of acid found in the blood. These medications treat only the problem of high acidity, not the underlying condition; therefore, if a patient stops using the medications, uric acid levels will rise again, resulting in high acid levels as long as the underlying cause persists.