high blood pressure & gout

I also suffer with gout and spent a year working through an exclusion diet to establish exactly what triggered an attack for me - as it happens tomato products especially those using puree (even waaayyyy down the ingredients list) is a REAL problem for me. Probably the next most significant thing I found was that keeping properly hydrated made a massive difference. I also gave up alcohol - which has not been the trauma that I thought it might (and I was a serious home brewer for many years before that).

The difficulty in giving you specific advice is that the triggers are different for each of us - there are many gout sufferers who are fine with tomato products but couldn't drink the fruit juices that I am fine with, so you will have to work systematically through foods figuring out what works for you - although staying hydrated is a tip that does apply to everyone.

Stay away from obviously purine rich foods and try to get a lot of plant proteins would be my starter.

My blood pressure was at the top end of the high-normal range for as long as I can remember... but since losing some weight and starting lifting it has naturally come down into the comfortably normal range.

Cant_think_of_a_username wrote: »

Forgot to say - you will read a lot about cherries helping people but as far as I could find much of this is anecdotal. For example - if I had hit on cherries at the same time as realising tomato triggered an attack I might be tempted to say it was the cherries that had helped. There are some studies about the effects of cherries as anti-inflammatory agents but I don't think they have enough real world application to determine any sort of levels in the diet etc however vitamin C is good for you and can be helpful in excreting uric acid so adding cherries certainly wouldn't do any harm (but don't expect a miracle cure).

Interestingly, Cherry tree bark IS an anti-inflammatory and is used in herbal medicines as cough syrups and anti-inflammatory teas. So, it's somewhat feasible that the fruit could be, too.

That said, I don't, as far as I know suffer from gout, but the high blood pressure is getting to me and I'm working on bringing that down too, so I'm definitely reading these suggestions too!