Some time ago, I did a physical examination again, and the physical examination report has not yet come out, but as a middle-aged person, I should have no less diseases, such as fatty liver and urinary stones, and one of these should not be left behind, but there is an indicator that I am most concerned about - uric acid.
Speaking of which, hot pot lovers and alcohol lovers got up one after another and said: I also want to talk about this topic of uric acid!
So I asked the male compatriots around me, and found that a considerable number of friends had abnormal uric acid indicators, but they also developed to the level of pain and even stones.
So I thought of a question, the uric acid problem of modern people is undoubtedly related to the diet, tobacco, alcohol, hot pot, seafood and other high-purine foods will cause uric acid problems, but the ancients have never had such troubles?So I was curious, looked up a lot of information, and found that things might not be so simple.
In Greek mythology, Aphdilote, the goddess of love and beauty, was seduced by the god of wine to give birth to a goddess, which was the goddess of gout.
From this myth, it is not difficult to see that gout has a lot to do with alcohol.
And from archaeology, it is known that gout is actually a very ancient disease. Archaeologists found a lump on the thumb bone of an elderly male in an ancient tomb in Egypt, which was chemically analyzed and identified as urate. On another mummy dating back at least 7,000 years, ancient urate kidney stones were discovered.
Gout is a disease that produces stones in the joints that flare up suddenly, causing severe pain.
That is, the ancient Egyptians began to experience the thrill of gout very early.
Hippocrates, the founder of Western medicine, called gout "a disease that cannot walk", and he has a very interesting account of this disease in his "aphorisms": "Eunuchs do not get gout, women do not get gout after menopause, men do not get gout after sex, the inflammation of gout subsides within 40 days of occurrence, and gout occurs more often in spring and autumn."
And it was Hippocrates who thought that abundant food and wine had a lot to do with the onset of this disease, and it would not be an exaggeration to say that it was the arthritis of the rich.
300 years later, the Roman physician Galen came to a similar conclusion: he believed that gout caused urate due to fornication, heredity, and the accumulation of bodily fluids in the body, and that it was necessary to diet, abstain from alcohol, and abstain from sexual intercourse.
In the 12th century, a monk first used the English word "gout" for gout, which is derived from the Latin word gutta, and the name gout was born.
In China, the word "gout" first appeared in the medical classics of the Northern and Southern Dynasties, because its pain came as fast as a gust of wind, so it was named.
In 1347, Zhu Danxi, one of the four famous doctors of the Jin and Yuan dynasties in China, wrote his own gout prescription in the "Treatise on Gezhiyu".
The effect of this prescription is very good, and the gout prescription is composed of Nanxing, Atractylodes, Cork, Chuanxiong, etc., which can not only evacuate the wind evil in the top, but also relieve dampness and heat in the bottom.
In fact, no matter how Chinese and foreign people understand gout, it has always been hazy, and it is impossible to understand its mechanism, but the attack of gout on human beings will not be merciful because of human ignorance!
As recognized as the "first pain in the world", the writer has a very vivid description, and the doctor Thomas Sidenham, who is also a writer, describes gout as follows: "At two o'clock in the morning, he woke up in sharp pain in his big toe;Rarely, patients with heel, ankle, or instep pain ......The pain that was relieved at first intensified ......One moment it is a violent pulling and tearing of the ligaments, another moment is a bite-like pain, and another is a feeling of pressure and contraction spasm. At the same time, the sensation in the affected area is so sharp that even the weight of the quilt becomes unbearable, and if someone walks around the room and makes noises, it will feel unbearable. ”
This kind of pain was experienced by Alexander the Great of Macedon, the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V and his sons Philip II of Spain, Frederick the Great, and the royal families of England and France.
500 years ago, the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V reigned for nearly 40 years (1506-1555), conquering the east and west, and his territory spanned Europe, Asia and Africa, but he was a patient with severe gout.
Beginning in 1538, Charles V's joints began to suffer from repeated severe pains, which limited his life, and Charles was put in a specially made wheelchair. Gout not only tormented his body, but also affected his thinking, and a manic and depressed Charlie was no longer able to make the right political decisions for the future of the country. The ruler, after 20 years of suffering, abdicated the throne.
It's not for nothing that Charlie has gout. He was a meat eater and a heavy drinker, and although the imperial physician advised him to moderate his diet, he ignored him. So the invincible king on the battlefield was defeated by his own appetite.
Kublai Khan, the ancestor of our country, also suffered from gout in his later years due to excessive drinking, which made him unable to walk and lead troops on horseback.
The Founding Father of the United States, Benjamin Franklin, the man who was printed on a $100 bill, was also a gout patient. His talent for invention is everywhere, and he also found the miracle medicine for gout, and it is also the main ingredient of modern gout medicine, which I will introduce later.
Sadly, Franklin still died of gout and its complications.
In Franklin's later years, he made unremitting efforts to ease relations between Britain and the United States, but during this time he suffered from gout, which prevented him from concentrating on long hours of work, and his diplomatic efforts had little effect.
In addition to them, the English philosopher Bacon, the French emperor Louis.
Ten. Fourth, the British physicist Isaac Newton, the German poet Goethe, and the British biologist Charles Darwin are also people who are "favored" by gout.
However, with the development of science, especially the invention of Leeuwenhoek's microscope, mankind has finally solved the puzzle of gout little by little.
In 1684, the Dutchman Leeuwenhoek used a microscope to observe the first rod-shaped crystals of sodium urate. This proves that the pain of gout is most likely related to this rod-shaped crystal.
In 1776, the Swedes first isolated uric acid from kidney stones in gout patients, suggesting that there was a connection between uric acid and the onset of gout;In 1848, the British doctor Gadro, known as the "father of modern gout", confirmed that gout is related to an increase in the concentration of uric acid in the human bodyIn 1898, the Germans discovered that uric acid** is metabolized by adenine and guanine in nucleic acids.
By now, we seem to see a link formed by gout relatively clearly. The adenine and guanine in food, after being metabolized by the human body, will cause the human uric acid to be high, and the uric acid is high, which will lead to the sodium urate of rod-shaped crystals, which will not only form stones, but also cause severe pain in patients.
In 2006, another milestone in gout research was published: urate crystals were seen as a red flag, and when it is engulfed by immune cells, it is recognized by receptors, and then the body produces interleukin, which induces gout inflammation.
At this point, the ** of gout also has a clear idea. That is to inhibit high uric acid and prevent the formation of sodium urate, that is, uric acid crystals.
At present, acute gout is generally anti-inflammatory and swelling as the temporary goal, such as the use of colchicine, and colchicine is the drug that Franklin used for himself, of course, colchicine that has not been purified.
But anti-inflammatory drugs are all palliative, not curative, and they all have different degrees of ***
Therefore we** The goal of ventilation is still to restore uric acid metabolism to normal, it has been proved that after the uric acid value returns to normal, gout can disappear after a certain period of time, most gout is a reversible disease, reducing uric acid, generally by reducing the formation of uric acid or accelerating the excretion of uric acid, allopurinol (allopurinol) and febuxostat (also known as febuxostat, English name febuxostat) and benzbromarone (benzbromarone) that increase uric acid excretion, although these drugs have been proven effective in clinical use, butIt is also serious, and long-term use can cause damage to organs such as liver and kidney, and the kidneys happen to be important organs for excreting uric acid.
Of course, we still need to control our diet, reduce our intake of purines, and eat less foods high in protein, especially seafood, meat, and animal offal. Cutting back on alcohol and sugary drinks can be a huge help in reducing the risk of uric acid and gout.
After all, gout was a disease of the rich in ancient times, caused by improper diet and high intake of high-purine foods.
Finally, I hope everyone can stay away from gout and live a healthy life.