Uric Acid: The Metabolic Marker Quietly Destroying Brain Health

What Uric Acid Is 0:00

Hey, in this video I'm talking about uric acid. It is a key player in diabetes, weight gain, fatty liver, heart disease and dementia. You need to understand what it is, what optimal levels are, and what you can do naturally to reduce your uric acid levels and have great metabolic health and reduce your risk of chronic disease. Now, so uric acid is a natural waste product in your blood that helps to break down purines. I'll go through purines later, but once uric acid dissolves in your blood, it moves through your kidneys and then leaves your body through urine.

However, if your body can't remove all the excess uric acid, it can lead to a buildup causing high uric acid levels. We call that hyper you're a senior. High uric acid levels may lead to kidney stones, gout, and other health issues. The good news is that it's possible to reduce your uric acid levels with the help of some natural support strategies. And in this video, you're going to learn what uric acid is. You'll learn about the connection between fructose, particularly high fructose corn sirup and hyper.

You're a senior. And I'll also discuss the top health conditions associated with high uric acid levels, and explain how testing works for your uric acid. And most importantly, I'm going to go over what high uric acid levels indicate, but also what low uric acid levels indicate because some people have problems with too low uric acid. And finally, I'm going to offer some natural support strategies to reduce high uric acid levels. So again uric acid is a natural waste product in your blood. It's a chemical made by your body to break down purines.

Now purines are chemicals created in your body. They're also found in certain foods and drinks and a healthy body. Most uric acid will dissolve in your blood, move through your kidneys, and get removed by the urine. But certain foods will increase uric acid and certain health issues like diabetes, high blood pressure, and fatty liver disease. That's also going to lead to too much uric acid in your body.

Fructose, Purines, and High Uric Acid 2:06

Hyper your asthma is a condition that refers to too much uric acid remaining in the body, and that can lead to crystal formation, causing gout when settling in your joints or kidney stones when settling in your kidneys. If left untreated, high uric acid levels may also cause kidney damage, bone and joint issues, tissue damage, or heart disease. Now let's look at fructose. So there's a relationship between fructose consumption and uric acid. Because fructose is a type of sugar. Fructose mainly occurs in fruits and it's often referred to as fruit sugar, honey, sugar cane, sugar beet and many vegetables also contain fructose in small amounts.

Fructose is no big deal, and when your body breaks down high amounts of fructose, though, it releases purines. To break down those purines, your body releases uric acid. And if you consume too much fructose in particular, high fructose corn sirup, which is a common ingredient in processed foods and processed soft drinks, it's obviously going to lead to increased uric acid levels. Today's people are drinking soft drinks and sodas full of high fructose corn sirup, causing very high uric acid levels.

Now, purines are also something we need to look out for their creative when breaking down fructose, but they're also found in many foods and drinks. Foods higher in uric acid and purines include salmon, shrimp, sardines, lobsters, mackerel, anchovies, and some other seafood, red meat, liver and other organ meats, dried beans, peas, alcohol, and food and drinks made with high fructose corn sirup. Again, those are all the things that really drive up uric acid levels. And if you eat too many of those foods high in purines, it may lead to increased uric acid production and uric acid build up.

Also, eating too many foods high in purines may lead to other health issues. A 2012 study published in the Annals of the Rheumatic Diseases found that eating foods high in purines may lead to recurrent gout attacks. But that said, I find that high fructose corn sirup, alcohol and high glycemic processed carbs, as well as processed seed oils are the major culprits behind higher acid levels. I don't concern myself too much with with high purine foods unless somebody already has it as like really high uric acid levels or they have they have something like gout.

Okay. In that case, we'll try to remove those for a short period of time while we get rid of all the other uric acid producing foods, things like high fructose corn sirup, alcohol, seed oils, processed carbs. That's that's really what we want to focus on there. Now let's look at some of the top conditions associated with higher ACC acid. We again we know untreated higher acid can lead to serious health consequences. So here's a list of things. Gout. That's the number one most well researched condition associated with high uric acid is a type of inflammatory arthritis characterized by pain, tenderness, swelling, and redness that comes in sudden and severe attacks that can affect one or more joints and usually occurs in the big toe.

It's generally caused by high uric acid levels that can build up in your joints. A 2016 study found that targeting serum uric acid is important for the treatment of gout, and it's important to note that though gout is caused by high uric acid levels, hyper you're a semi. It doesn't always result in gout, so you can have high uric acid and not necessarily have gout. Now diabetes this is big. High uric acid levels increase the risk of insulin resistance, which leads to prediabetes and eventually type two diabetes.

Women are at higher risk with uric acid mediated insulin resistance than men. A 2016 cohort study that was published in the Annals of Rheumatic Disease found that women with gout are 71% more likely to develop type two diabetes, while men only have 22% increased risk. However, it's not only high uric acid and gout that increase the risk of type two diabetes, but actually type two diabetes may also increase the risk of high uric acid and gout. So people with type two diabetes, they're often overweight or obese, and they carry extra fat, particularly visceral fat, around their belly area and around their organs that may interfere with healthy kidney function.

So the fat will get around the kidneys, impair the kidneys, and that can reduce your body's ability to remove uric acid as fast and as effectively as it should. So it's kind of like a double edged sword. High uric acid will increase your risk of diabetes. But diabetes and just being overweight in general will increase your risk of having high uric acid. So another condition with with higher acid levels is fatty liver disease. That means there's too much fat stored in your liver cells. So we get visceral fat that forms around our liver and blocks off,

Health Conditions Linked to High Uric Acid 7:00

chokes off good blood supply to our liver and the liver cells start to die and be replaced with kind of a scar tissue, a fatty scar tissue. Fatty liver disease can cause liver inflammation, cirrhosis or advanced scarring of the liver and liver failure. Now used to be mostly just alcoholics that would get fatty liver disease. But now there's a whole condition and fast growing condition called nonalcoholic fatty liver disease. And this is where people that are consuming too much fructose and seed oils and things like that, that are causing major problems and causing, fatty liver disease.

And so a 2017 study published in Lipids in Health and Disease found that high uric acid levels are a problem in non-obese adults with nonalcoholic fatty liver disease. So for those who are not obese but still have fatty liver disease, uric acid metabolism seems to be a key factor. Now let's talk about hypertension. Hypertension, or high blood pressure means that the long term force of the blood against your artery walls is too high. High blood pressure of 140 systolic over 90 or higher is considered hypertension, and that can increase your risk of heart disease, stroke, and overall mortality because it's a sign that we're not able to get good blood flow to major regions of the body, good oxygen to major regions of the body.

And we know that high blood pressure is associated with high uric acid levels. So a 2018 study published in medicina, they showed that higher gas levels direct link to hypertension. Another 2023 review, published in hypertension, found that the connection between high uric acid levels and hypertension may lie in reduced kidney blood flow. Researchers found that reducing uric acid levels may reduce the risk of hypertension, so this is really important to remember. A 2020 review published in Hypertension Research found that hyper you're a CPA, so high uric acid levels causes endothelial damage, damages the internal lining in the blood vessels, and that leads to hypertension.

Another condition is cognitive decline. We know that's on the rise and it's linked to higher ACC acid levels. A 2018 review published in nutrients found that uric acid levels may play a role in cognitive function, and that may play a role in increasing the progression of dementia. Alzheimer's disease and Parkinson's disease. Another study, a 2020 study that was published in Frontiers in Aging and Neuroscience, found that high uric acid levels were linked to cerebral hypo metabolism and Alzheimer's disease, meaning that the cerebral cells were not able to produce enough energy and they were dying and being replaced by these neurofibrillary tangles.

And this beta amyloid. That's classic of Alzheimer's disease. Another major condition with uric acid levels is kidney disease. And we know that if you have kidney disease, it means your kidneys are damaged and they're unable to filter your blood. This is really important. We know kidney disease leads to kidney failure, which requires dialysis or a kidney transplant. You see, as your kidneys filter your blood, excess uric acid may build up if they're slow. This buildup can cause the formation of your crystals, which can scar and damage your kidneys.

In some cases, it can cause kidney kidney stones, right? But oftentimes you don't even notice it. You don't even feel it. But it's literally scarring and damaging the kidneys, leading to kidney disease. A 2011 review that was published in Seminars in Nephrology found a link between high uric acid levels and chronic kidney disease, and so other studies have gone on to show that high uric acid levels is a potential marker for kidney disease and renal failure. Osteoarthritis, another major condition associated with high uric acid levels.

We know osteoarthritis most commonly affects your knees, hips, hands or spine. It's a degenerative condition damaging the joints, and it's linked to high uric acid levels. A 2011 study published by Duke University Medical Center found that higher ACC acid levels increase the risk of osteoarthritis. A 2017 review published in Frontiers in Medicine found that gout and high uric acid levels may also increase the risk of osteoarthritis, so lots of studies there. Osteoporosis, another condition we know that's weakening of the bone tissues.

And a 2018 review found that high uric acid levels are associated with osteoporosis and related fractures in postmenopausal women. A 2019 review published in nutrients found that high uric acid levels may inhibit vitamin D production, increase inflammatory cytokines and free radicals, and may reduce bone density and increase the risk of osteoporosis in bone fractures. So really important that it actually inhibits vitamin D production as well. PCOS polycystic ovarian syndrome it's a common hormonal disorder that affects women of reproductive age.

It's characterized by excess androgen or testosterone levels, prolonged periods of infrequent periods as the ovaries may fail to release eggs regularly or release more eggs and normal symptoms of PCOS include miss periods or prolonged periods. It can also include things like cysts on the ovaries, weight gain, oily skin, acne, excess body hair, dark skin, patches around the armpit, neck or under the breast, and infertility. We know high uric acid levels are linked with an elevated risk of PCOS. In fact, a 2018 study found that 25.48% of women with PCOS so roughly a little over 25%, had high uric acid levels, compared to only 8.75% of women without PCOS.

So big deal right there. We know again, uric acid levels linked to PCOS issues as well as endometriosis. They also found high uric acid may also lead to pregnancy complications, including a risk of higher risk of miscarriage. So really important for for women that are looking to become pregnant to check their uric acid levels. Now, when we're testing uric acid levels, it's really important that we're looking at the range. The normal clinical range for uric acid that most doctors recommend is between 2.6 and 7.6 milligrams per deciliter.

The functional range is what I look at for functional medicine doctors. We prefer it between 3 to 5.5 milligrams per deciliter. So if it's up above 5.5, I consider that high uric acid, even though it may not be flagged on the lab if it's under three. I consider that low higher Acaster course. It's not good. She also don't want low uric acid low. If it's under three, it may be a sign that you have poor phase two liver sulfate processes. You see the goal of phase two of Liberty talk. Suffocation is something called conjugation.

This is when your body removes metabolites from phase one through the bile, urine and stool to reduce oxidative stress. The conjugation process involves six major metabolic pathways, including methylation, salvation, glucose and glutathione conjugation, acetylation, and glycation. So very complex phase two system of liver detox. Low uric acid maybe a sign of issues with the sole fashion process and a potential molybdenum deficiency, which is a trace mineral that some people need more of than others and is critical for phase two salvation.

So we can look at molybdenum levels if you have very low uric acid levels. Now let's talk about ways to reduce uric acid levels. Obviously we need to do this. The good news is you can reduce your uric acid levels with the help of some natural support strategies. If you want to learn more and really everything to know about uric acid levels. A great book. It's called Drop Acid The Surprising New Science of Uric Acid by my friend Doctor David Perlmutter. New York Times bestselling author. And let's talk about some of the major strategies he talks about in the book, and that I talk about in my popular article and content on uric acid number one is you've got to reduce alcohol, sugar and fructose intake.

This is the most important step drinking too much alcohol and consuming food and drinks with too much sugar and fructose is the number one factor for increasing high uric acid levels. Lowering your intake of sugar, fructose and alcohol may also reduce the risk of obesity, diabetes, and other health issues that are connected to high uric acid levels. I recommend reducing your alcohol intake or removing alcohol completely, especially if you're dealing with a major health issue. I would just take it out completely, at least for a period of time.

Until you get metabolically healthy. I also recommend reducing your intake of refined sugar from high fructose sources. And processed foods in general. Just reduce your overall processed food consumption and instead try to stick to as much whole foods as possible. High fructose corn sirup is particularly important to avoid, but it's in so many different things, so you really have to look at labels. If you're consuming processed foods, if you're consuming whole real foods, you don't need to read labels.

So you can just consume the food and and eat again, blood sugar stabilizing foods. Now one caveat is to consider lowering purines. I'm not a huge advocate of this. However, eating foods high in purine levels may, especially if you've had gout attacks or if your your uric acid levels are really super high, like up over six, then that's something to consider, at least for a period of time. Okay, so if you're struggling with really high uric acid levels up over six, I would recommend lowering your intake of foods that are real high, the highest foods and purines.

That's going to be things like shellfish, mackerel, anchovies, organ meats. If you're eating a lot of liver, things like that, and then bullion cubes. Okay, so those would be like the main ones to avoid. Instead, you can switch to more low purine foods like, greens, green vegetables,

Testing Uric Acid Levels 17:00

sprouts, herbs, spices, fermented foods, healthy fats like avocados, coconut oil, pasture raised butter and ghee, olives, extra virgin olive oil, and low to moderate purine protein sources like grass fed, grass fed red meat, eggs, poultry, cold water, fish, things like salmon and tuna. Some of those are moderate purine. They have moderate purine levels, but I don't think they're really going to be that big a factor. As long as you get the alcohol. The the processed fructose and the process sugar out of your diet.

Another key thing to do is practice intermittent fasting. And that is when you cycle between a period of fasting and a period of eating within a day. The most common form of intermittent fasting includes 16 hours of fasting, including, you know, while you're sleeping and then eight hours during the day that are reserved for eating right. So it might be 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. or 12 p.m. to 8 p.m. for example, intermittent fasting has been shown to improve mitochondrial health, insulin sensitivity, digestion.

It reduces inflammation, and it lowers uric acid. Now, it's important to note that at first, uric acid levels will rise while you're fasting, but then post fasting. So after you fast, it's going to return to normal levels. That's because when you're fasting, we undergo autophagy and we break down damaged proteins. And that releases purines, which are our part of the protein process. And that also creates more uric acid as a byproduct. However, we get the great metabolic changes, the improved insulin sensitivity, the better fat burning, the better blood sugar stabilization that takes place while we're fasting.

And that's going to lower uric acid levels over a period of time. And we know fasting again improves blood sugar and insulin sensitivity. And that's important because insulin resistance and diabetes may contribute to high uric acid levels. In fact, we know they do. And if you're new to intermittent fasting, begin with a 12 hour fast, including your overnight sleep. So if you finish dinner by 7 p.m., wait until 7 a.m.. The next day before you consume anything with calories, and then gradually increase your fasting window by going longer in the morning before eating your meal.

Now, most people feel the best when they do a 16 eight approach 16 hours of fasting, eight hours of eating. But you may find that you can fast for a little bit longer, like an 18 six or in some cases a little bit less. And you'll still get great benefits. Now, another thing that's going to help is regular exercise. When you're moving and you're exercising, it's going to reduce your uric acid levels.

Natural Ways to Lower Uric Acid 19:30

I recommend walking at least 10,000 steps a day, and also engaging in resistance training for 15 to 20 minutes, 3 to 4 times per week to build healthy muscle and bone. So when you move a lot throughout the day to low intensity and then engage in roughly about 60 minutes of strength training to build muscle over a 3 to 4 day, you know, a week period. So 15 to 20 minutes a day for 3 to 4 days out of the week. That's going to help you get great metabolic health benefits. Another thing you need to do is hydrate. Well.

When you hydrate well you get better kidney function. That's critical for removing excess uric acid from your body. A 2016 study published in BMJ open found that heat stress may decrease kidney function and increase uric acid levels, making hydration important for reducing uric acid and improving kidney function. I recommend starting your day with 16 to 32oz of water in a glass, so you're avoiding plastic. Drink water throughout the day. So you start with this big load of water in the morning. You're you're naturally dehydrated when you wake up, hydrate well early and then drink about eight ounces of water every hour up until maybe two hours before you go to bed.

That's going to keep you super hydrated and help you flush out excess uric acid. Now, if you don't enjoy the taste of water, you can add some lemon juice or add some cucumber or other veggie slices, or even stevia flavored electrolytes to help you hydrate properly. Eating hydrating vegetables at your meals like things like cucumbers, celery, romaine lettuce, drinking bone broth, having soup, drinking herbal tea, green juices, green smoothies, protein shakes all of that can add extra hydration as well.

Now another important thing is to optimize your vitamin D levels. We know a 2020 study published in Frontiers in Nutrition found a link between vitamin D levels and high uric acid. Researchers found that low vitamin D levels may be associated with high uric acid levels, and you can use vitamin D supplementation to lower and improve your uric acid. So when we're looking at vitamin D, obviously you can you can get out in the sun. And I recommend that's a number one way to get your vitamin D. Get as much sun in your body without burning as possible.

You can also eat vitamin D rich foods. That's going to be things like egg yolks and, wild caught salmon, for example, are both great sources of vitamin D, although it's hard to get enough vitamin D from food. And most people, unfortunately, are not getting out in the sun anywhere near where they should be. So vitamin D supplements can be really helpful. When you're taking vitamin D, look for vitamin D3 and take it with vitamin K2 that will help improve calcium absorption and overall inflammation control and help reduce uric acid levels.

I recommend taking a vitamin D3 supplement with at least 3000 to 5000 international units of vitamin D3, and at least 90 micrograms of vitamin K2, and typically, the recommendation I give is take about 1000 international units of vitamin D per 25 pounds of body weight if you do that. So if you're 200 pounds, take a roughly about 8000 international units. That's going to get you into the healthy range. And you want to test your vitamin D levels at least 1 or 2 times a year, and get your levels between 50 to 100 nanograms per milliliter.

That is a sweet spot, and it's been hypothesized that a therapeutic level for major health conditions. So if you have diabetes, hypertension, things like that, you really want to get your levels up around 70 to 100 nanograms per milliliter of vitamin D. Again, you can do it with sun and also with supplementation. Another important thing is to optimize your zinc levels. We know a zinc deficiency increases your risk of high uric acid levels. A 2018 study published in nutrients found that low zinc intake is actually really common in adults in the United States, and low zinc levels may be associated with high uric acid levels.

A 2020 study published in the International Journal of Fertility and Sterility found that zinc supplementation help to restore healthy uric acid levels. Of course, that was a journal fertility. So they also showed that zinc supplementation improved fertility and sterility. And one of the mechanisms was lowering uric acid levels. So I recommend eating plenty of foods that are rich in zinc things like red meat, poultry, fish, oysters, eggs, dairy and pumpkin seeds, are all good sources. Now, obviously some of those things, like for example, shellfish are high in purines.

So you may want to consider using zinc supplementation to help balance your zinc levels, usually taken about 15 to 20, extra milligrams of zinc a day. Always take that with a meal and that can help optimize your zinc levels. Vitamin C we all know about vitamin C as an important vitamin for your immune system, but it also helps to reduce your uric acid levels. A 2009 study that was published in the Archives of Internal Medicine found that higher vitamin C intake was linked with lower uric acid levels, so supplementing with vitamin C will help your overall health, your metabolic health, as well as uric acid levels.

So I recommend eating foods rich in vitamin C, such as citrus fruits, berries, bell peppers, tomatoes, broccoli, and arugula. You may also benefit from taking a high quality vitamin C supplement. Now. Quercetin is another key compound. It's an antioxidant and flavanols found in many plant foods, including black currants, cherries, blueberries, black plums, cranberries, apples, grapes, sage, broccoli, olive oil. Pepper. Kale, romaine lettuce A lot of these foods red onions, snap peas, cabbage. It has many great benefits, including reduced inflammation and lower histamine levels.

And it also works to reduce your uric acid levels. A 2016 randomized, double blind, placebo controlled crossover clinical trial published in the British Journal of Nutrition. So a high level study found that quercetin was significant in helping lower uric acid levels, and quercetin also acts as a zinc iron ore, for it helps shuttle zinc into cells where it can work to support cellular function, and its ability to get zinc into the cell may be one of the mechanisms for helping with uric acid metabolism.

So take about 500mg of quercetin two times daily, and that can be a great supplement to help regulate inflammation in your body. Now another key compound is resveratrol. It's a powerful antioxidant found in the skin of grapes, berries, and red wine, and it really complements the benefits of quercetin. It's known for reducing inflammation, and it brings just a wide variety of different benefits. It really helps jumpstart your mitochondria and cellular energy production. And a 2016 study found that resveratrol was very effective at reducing uric acid levels and gout attacks.

Green tea is another key thing that you can focus on. It's full of antioxidants, has many great, great potential benefits, including, it's used to help with fat burning, improve cognition, better blood sugar balance, and it lowers uric acid levels as well. So taking in green tea with the SGC, the the the powerful catechins helps reduce uric acid levels. And gout studies have shown that. So I recommend drinking green tea or taking green tea extract supplements to get those benefits. And then finally tart.

Cherry tart cherries are known as sour cherries or dwarf cherries. And they're full of nutrients and they help with reducing your uric acid levels. A 2020 randomized controlled trial published in BMJ open found that tart cherry juice help reduce uric acid levels and gout attacks, so you may benefit from drinking tart cherry juice by being tart. It's higher in polyphenols and lower in sugar, so you can try drinking tart cherry juice now. Ultimately, what are our final thoughts here? Well, we know uric acid is very problematic.

And normally you're going to get rid of uric acid through your kidneys and get it out through your urine. However, if your body can't remove all the excess uric acid, it can lead to a buildup causing hyper. You're a senior, which may lead to kidney stones, gout and other health issues. Fortunately, as I talked about here, you can reduce your uric acid levels naturally, so make sure you're following the strategies I talked about in this video today. And also be sure to check out the detailed article with all the research citations on uric acid.

On drjockers.com. And of course share this with anybody that you know and that you care about uric acid. Very important topic and subscribe to our channel so you never miss one of these important video trainings. We'll see you in a future video. Be blessed.