Most clinicians recommend that people with gout, and those with high uric acid reduce or eliminate purine-containing foods. The primary sources of dietary purines are:
- Red meat: beef, pork, lamb, buffalo
- Organ meat: liver, kidney, sweatbreads
- Fatty fish like sardines, herring, anchovy, mackerel
- Coffee
- Vegetables like: spinach, mushrooms, artichokes, asparagus, peas
- Brewer's yeast
- Oats
However, eliminating purine-rich foods doesn't address the real issue. Additionally, dietary sources of purines actually play very little role in purine biosynthesis.
Purines are nucleic acid bases, the macromolecules of our DNA and RNA. Purines are synthesized as a result of folate and methionine methylation reactions. The human body synthesizes its own purines regardless of the consumption of purine-containing foods.
Elevations in uric acid, >5.0 mg/dl are reflective of rising levels of inflammatory activity and have little if anything to do with dietary purines. Uric acid can also rise in response to mycotoxicosis, and may also be elevated with GI inflammation.