Scientists from the University of California San Diego have made a breakthrough in understanding gout, a common type of painful arthritis.
They’ve discovered a new molecular pathway that not only causes gout but also leads to the erosion of joint tissues.
This research highlights a protein called lubricin, found in joint fluid, as a new target for preventing and treating gout.
Gout is a form of arthritis that occurs when urate, a substance produced by the breakdown of purine-rich foods (like meat and alcohol), builds up in the body.
This leads to the formation of needle-like crystals in and around joints, often starting in the foot.
These crystals cause episodes of severe pain, swelling, and tenderness in the joints. Over time, this can lead to chronic joint damage, affecting the patient’s movement and quality of life.
Traditionally, doctors thought that high levels of urate in the blood (hyperuricemia) were the main cause of gout. But this doesn’t always add up, as many people with high urate levels never develop the disease.
In fact, having high urate levels without symptoms (asymptomatic hyperuricemia) is much more common than gout itself.
Interestingly, patients with gout often have more urate in their joint fluid than in their blood. This led the researchers to focus on what causes urate to build up and form crystals specifically in the joints.
In their study, they looked at a rare gout case where the patient had joint urate crystals and erosion but didn’t have high blood urate levels.
They found that this patient had a significant reduction in lubricin, a protein that lubricates and protects joint tissues. This protein also regulates certain white blood cells that can cause inflammation in the joints.
Further experiments showed that under normal conditions, lubricin helps to control urate and xanthine oxidase (an enzyme that produces urate) levels. It also prevents urate from turning into crystals in the joints.
When they looked at other common gout patients, they found that these individuals also had much lower levels of lubricin.
This suggests that the chances of someone with high urate levels developing gout might depend on their genetic variants for lubricin and other related molecules.
Understanding this new cause of gout opens the door to potential new treatments focused on lubricin. It’s a significant step forward in managing a disease that affects so many people’s quality of life.
If you’re interested in health and wellness, this study could be quite relevant. It was conducted by Robert Terkeltaub and his team and published in the journal Arthritis & Rheumatology.
If you care about pain, please read studies about how to manage your back pain, and Krill oil could improve muscle health in older people.
For more information about pain, please see recent studies about how to live pain-free with arthritis, and results showing common native American plant may help reduce diarrhea and pain.
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