Johns Hopkins Health Alert
Researchers Identify Genes Associated with Increased Gout Risk
Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health Press Release: More than three million adults in the United States have gout. Gout is a painful inflammation of the joints, which can occur with a build-up of uric acid in the blood. Genetic disposition, obesity, a diet high in meat and cheese, alcohol consumption, and certain medications can increase the risk for developing gout.
- Now, a team of researchers from the United States and the Netherlands has identified mutations in three genes that are associated with high levels of uric acid in the blood, which is a risk factor for gout. The team developed a genetic risk score composed of the number of uric acid-increasing mutations that each person carries (0 to 6), which was associated with up to a 40-fold increased risk for developing gout when comparing persons at lowest and highest risk. The findings are published in the journal The Lancet.
The researchers conducted genome-wide association studies of more than 20,000 people enrolled in three large population-based studies investigating cardiovascular disease risk factors: the Framingham Heart Study based at Boston University Medical Center; the Rotterdam Study based at Erasmus Medical Centre in Rotterdam, the Netherlands; and the Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities (ARIC) study based at Johns Hopkins University. Of more than 500,000 genetic variations that were evaluated, the analysis identified two genes, ABCG2 and SLC17A3, as novel risk genes for gout and confirmed the association of a third gene, SLC2A9.
Bottom line: "This research gives us a better understanding of the underlying causes of gout, which could lead to better gout prevention and treatment. Our evidence supports that a common pathway, the handling of uric acid by the kidney, is important in uric acid build-up and therefore for the development of gout," said study author, Anna Köttgen, MD, MPH, an assistant scientist in the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health's Department of Epidemiology.
"Genetic risk scores like the one we developed for gout can help alert people at a very early age, well before uric acid levels rise, that they are susceptible to gout. The new insights are promising for drug development," said Josef Coresh, MD, PhD, MHS, professor in the Bloomberg School's departments of Epidemiology and Biostatistics.
"An important unanswered question is whether we can use genetic risk information to motivate people to change their behavior. For gout, we know that moderate changes in diet and alcohol consumption can lower uric acid levels. In the future, we will need to test if identification of high-risk individuals can lead to behavior change."
Posted in Arthritis on December 8, 2008
Medical Disclaimer: This information is not intended to substitute for the advice of a physician. Click here for additional information: Johns Hopkins Health Alerts Disclaimer
Notify Me
Would you like us to inform you when we post new Arthritis Health Alerts?
Comments
Health Alerts registered users may post comments and share experiences here at their own discretion. We regret that questions on individual health concerns to the Johns Hopkins editors cannot be answered in this space.
The views expressed here do not constitute medical advice, and do not represent the position of Johns Hopkins Medicine or Remedy Health Media, LLC, which has no responsibility for any comments posted on this site.
Post a Comment
Already a subscriber?
Login
New to Johns Hopkins Health Alerts?
I would expect that high uric acid would be chronic if it were genetically based. But if chronically high uric acid levels were the cause of gout, then gout sufferers should test high for uric acid whenever the test is taken. But the majority of gout patients do not test high for uric acid, from which I conclude that their gout flares originate from acute uric acid flares which are not present when their uric acid blood tests are conducted. Question: What can cause a uric acid flare at a time when blood tests are not usually conducted? Answer: Sleep apnea. The oxygen deprivation of sleep apnea was reported 20 years ago to cause the cells to generate excess uric acid fed into the blood, resulting in an acute uric acid flare. Maybe that's the reason that most gout flares originate when the gout sufferer is asleep.
Posted by: Burt Abrams | December 13, 2008 7:24 PM