Gout is an arthritis due to crystals, not the ‘new-age’ sort that you buy in shops (!), but rather crystals of uric acid which accumulate in the body. Uric acid is an insoluble compound that can become precipitated into tissues and joints as crystals. Gout used to be thought of as being an arthritis that affected overweight men who indulged in port, offal and prawns, or so the urban myth went! We don’t eat so much offal these days (thank goodness?!), yet gout is still very common….
Gout is a condition that results from the accumulation of excess uric acid in the body. Uric acid is an insoluble compound that can become precipitated into tissues and joints as crystals.
In Rheumatology, Gout is known as a ‘Crystal Arthropathy’ because it causes an arthritis due to the crystals of uric acid being deposited in the joint which trigger an immune response.