The relationship between tea, coffee, and health is highly controversial; these two are one of the most consumed beverages in the world: One of the data revealed that 80% of Spanish adults consume coffee daily. On the other hand in 2021, global consumption of tea amounted to about 6.3 billion kilograms. Contradictory messages abound in relation to its consumption; there are those who love it and those who hate it.
A few years ago, coffee was relegated to the kingdom of the most toxic drinks and even today, many "coaches" continue to advise against it, perhaps as a result of previous studies showing that coffee could be harmful. In these studies, mortality had not been adjusted for different confounding variables, such as associated tobacco or alcohol consumption. It is (or rather was) common to consume tobacco with coffee and it seems that this fact led some studies to find a relationship between tea and coffee consumption and higher mortality. Another frequent fact in the consumption of tea/coffee is to accompany it with some type of pastry, milk, sugar or liquor and this would be another confounding variable, which in the new studies has already been adjusted.
Now the question is, can tea and coffee be a threat to increasing your health? or in other words can tea and coffee be the threat of increasing Uric Acid? Let's discuss….
Coffee has been shown to have various effects, both positive and negative, on human health. We are going to discuss its effects on health, but first, let's talk about what coffee is.
Both tea and coffee are beverages that contain low concentrations of purines. Many pages claim that you have to avoid its consumption to regulate uric acid levels. In this post, we are going to clear doubts.
Excess purines in our diet are the main cause of high uric acid. Many times this hyperuricemia becomes symptomatic giving very annoying pictures:
👉 Gout
Excess uric acid forms microcrystals in the joints, especially in the big toe as it is the coldest joint in the body. These microcrystals will unleash an intense and annoying inflammatory reaction.
👉 Kidney stones
Uric acid is eliminated in the urine and if it is high, it can form stones in the kidney or urinary tract. Causing a very painful clinical picture.
Hyperuricemia normally appears in people who eat a diet rich in seafood, red meat, processed meat, and blue fish, among other foods.
Are Tea and Coffee Rich in Purines?
Like most foods, green tea, green coffee contains purines but is not considered high-purine beverage. People who have high uric acid are recommended to moderate the ingestion of foods with high contents of these bases, avoiding foods such as seafood, tuna, salmon, pork, red meat, etc. Lowering the number of purines ingested to 0 (Zero) is impossible because almost all foods contain purines.
Tea and coffee are classified as foods that contain a negligible amount of purines and therefore their use would not be restricted to people with hyperuricemia.
Does Caffeine Raise Uric Acid Levels and Cause Gout?
It is enough to carry out a small search on google to see the disparity of information that there is. Many "natural medicine" pages state that we must reduce the consumption of tea and coffee to a minimum if we want to control our uric acid levels. They do not make any reference to scientific studies because they have not even bothered to inform themselves properly. Pages are copied from one another, spreading the hoax around the world.
We Look for Information Related to Health in Scientific Studies:
The American College of Rheumatology conducted a study and found that men who are coffee drinkers decrease their risk of gout.
The American Nutrition Society showed that female coffee drinkers also had a lower risk of developing gout.
A study from the University of British Columbia, Vancouver (Canada) surveyed more than 14,000 people on tea and coffee consumption. After years of analysis, it was concluded that long-term consumption of these beverages is associated with lower uric acid levels.
South Korean study carried out by several institutions and universities, investigated the parameters of 9,400 patients for a few years to find some relationship between the consumption of tea and coffee in the levels of uric acid. No relationship was found, neither for the better nor for the worse.
After knowing all this information, we can affirm that coffee and tea are not harmful foods for people with high uric acid, they could even be beneficial.
In addition, tea is a recognized natural anti-inflammatory and since gout is an inflammatory disease, it could help alleviate its annoying symptoms.
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