Category: Gout

High uric acid levels in the blood are a precursor of gout, the most common inflammatory arthritis in adult men. It is believed that coffee and tea consumption may affect uric acid levels but only one study has been conducted to date. A new large-scale study published in the June 2007 issue of Arthritis Care & Research (http://www.interscience.wiley.

Coffee is a habit for more than 50 percent of Americans, who drink, on average, 2 cups per day. This widely consumed beverage is regularly investigated and debated for its impact on health conditions from breast cancer to heart disease. Among its complex effects on the body, coffee or its components have been linked to lower insulin and uric acid levels on a short-term basis or cross-sectionally.

Savient Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ:SVNT) announced today that it has reached its Phase 3 enrollment target of 200 patients total, in the two replicate placebo-controlled six-month clinical trials. The trials assess the safety and efficacy of Puricase in patients with treatment-failure gout, under the auspices of a Special Protocol Assessment from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

Climatic factors such as heat and humidity that lead to dehydration can signal a future attack for gout sufferers, according to research presented this week at the American College of Rheumatology Annual Scientific Meeting in Washington DC.Gout, caused by deposits of monosodium uric crystals, causes severe pain and swelling of the joints.

Results of a new survey show that two-thirds (65 percent) of gout patients ranked their typical gout flares — defined as a sudden, intense pain — as either close to, or the worst pain possible and say that the flares last an average of eight days. Seventy-two percent reported having experienced at least one flare within the last 12 months. The online survey of 321 gout patients was conducted by Harris Interactive(R) on behalf of Savient Pharmaceuticals, Inc.

The Gout & Uric Acid Education Society, a non-profit group of health care professionals, today launched http://www.gouteducation.org , a valuable educational resource for gout sufferers and their caregivers. The Web site is designed to help gout sufferers enhance their understanding of the disease and its treatments, embrace lifestyle modifications and, ideally, restore some control and spontaneity to their lives.

People with gout are at increased risk of having a heart attack, according to a University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine study published in the August edition of the journal Arthritis & Rheumatism. The article is available on line at http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/cgi-bin/jhome/76509746.

For over 100 years we have known that the intensely painful disease gout is caused by the accumulation of monosodium urate crystals (MSU) in joints. Now, in a study appearing in the August issue of the Journal of Clinical Investigation, Kenneth Rock and colleagues from University of Massachusetts Medical School uncover how these crystal deposits are recognized by the immune system and trigger acute and painful inflammation.

The first new class of drug to emerge in 40 years for treating chronic gout has the potential to radically alter the outlook for thousands of patients unable to benefit from currently available therapies, says the drug’s developer Savient Pharmaceuticals Inc. who presented Phase II data at this year’s annual meeting of the European rheumatology community, EULAR.

Savient Pharmaceuticals, Inc announced that patients withelevated blood uric acid levels and treatment-resistant gout who were treatedwith its investigational drug Puricase(R) (PEG-uricase) had substantial andsustained reduction in plasma urate levels, according to study results thatwere presented on Wednesday, November 16 at the American College ofRheumatology 2005 Annual Meeting.