will drinking vinegar and water help to stop gout?!
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No, there isn't any clinical evidence showing improvement of gout after drinking vinegar and water. Many websites and folk remedies suggest that vinegar would make your blood "alkaline" to prevent gout, but the science behind this theory is very weak.
The swelling and painful joints characterized in gout are due to little uric acid crystals in your joints. These uric acid crystals form when your body breaks down too much purine nucleotides. (Purine nucleotides are the ATP and GTP in a cell's DNA.) If you eat foods that are high in purine nucleotides (ie: alcohol - especially red wine, red meat, organ meats such as liver, and oily fish such as salmon), your body will have to digest the purine nucleotides in these foods, and as it digests them, it will form uric acid.
When there's not much uric acid and the blood pH is normal (around pH 7), uric acid usually stays dissolved in the blood, and our body can get rid of it by excreting it in the urine.
However, when there's too much uric acid (either by eating too much alcohol and meat, or if our body lacks a certain enzyme that helps recycle these purine nucleotides), the uric acid will start to form crystals.
Another factor in the formation of uric acid crystals is the pH. Uric acid will form crystals when the pH is below pH 5.8. Usually, our blood pH does not become so low, unless the person can't control his diabetes, or is on a strict protein diet. But usually, if our kidneys are functioning normally, our blood pH rarely goes below pH 6.8, even if we drink/eat acidic foods with pH below pH 7 (ie: oranges, lemons, vinegar). So in a person with healthy kidneys, blood pH is not usually the cause of uric acid crystal formation, and drinking vinegar would not make a difference on the gout.
Also, vinegar is not an alkaline drink like so many websites say. The definition of "alkaline" is when the liquid has a pH above pH 7. The pH range of vinegar is somewhere between pH 3 to pH 6, depending on how much water you add to the vinegar. So vinegar is not alkaline, it is really ACIDIC. And since the pH of vinegar is below pH 5.8, it would actually cause uric acid crystals to form, worsening gout.
In a nutshell, there's no proof that vinegar will stop gout. Theoretically, vinegar would not have any affect on gout, and if it did, it would actually WORSEN gout rather than stop the gout.
Below is some more information about treating gout:
http://www.gpnotebook.co.uk/cache/1536819218.htm
Basically, avcid alcohol, organ meats, and oily fish. And drink lots of water. Vinegar is harmless, but it will not help gout.
Hope this helps, and be sure to talk with your doctor!
Other Answers:
There aren't any scientific, well-controlled studies proving that drinking vinegar would stop gout. From hearsay, people might say it helped them, but how do you know that they weren't taking medications at the same time, and it was really the medication that worked, not the vinegar? Also, maybe it was all psychological. They drank the vinegar thinking it would help their gout, and because they believed in the vinegar, they felt better after drinking the vinegar. I don't think it would hurt to drink the vinegar, but I'm doubtful that it would help at all.
Source(s):
http://www.arc.org.uk/newsviews/arctdy/119/diet.htm
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