Sweetened Beverages and Gout

I love fruit juice, and in theory, it should be good for you. Unfortunately, it probably isn’t, for many reasons.

A big problem with fruit juices is their high sugar-to-fiber ratio. Fiber is important because it helps the body moderate how it processes sugar. Hitting the body with a ton of sugar without any fiber is just not the best idea.

On a related note, I recently came across this study. A large meta-analysis looking at 22 studies and nearly 236,000 people found that drinking more sugar-sweetened beverages like soda is linked to a higher risk of gout.

The research pulled together data from cross-sectional, cohort, and case-control studies. People who drank more sugary drinks had about 33% higher odds of elevated uric acid levels and 21% higher odds of developing gout.

Fruit juice showed a more mixed picture—it was associated with somewhat higher uric acid levels, but the connection to actual gout wasn’t as clear.

The likely culprit here is fructose, which is a major component of sugar and can directly raise uric acid levels. What’s interesting is that not all fruit juices are created equal in this regard. Orange juice might be less problematic because it’s packed with vitamin C and flavonoids that could offset some of the fructose effect. Apple juice, on the other hand, is high in fructose without as much vitamin C to balance things out, so it may have more impact on uric acid.