Dietary Guidelines to Avoid and Manage Uric Acid Problems for Players

Many players and sports people suffer from a problem of high uric acid levels. This is often shown as shooting pain in the wrist, elbow, shoulder, ankle, toes, etc. The condition is commonly called Gout. When protein rich foods, specially non- veg like mutton, beef, glandular meat like liver, kidney, seafood, small fish, chicken, etc. are digested in the body, uric acid is formed as a break down product. This must be flushed out of the body with plenty of water. If not urate crystals will form and lodge themselves in the cartilages of the joints like wrist, elbow, ankles, etc. This will result in shooting pain or a pricking pain.

This is seen to occur more frequently and obviously in summer or when the weather suddenly cools and the normal water intake that is necessary is not consumed. Also when players go into a camp or special training session where the workouts are very intense and they don’t drink enough water to compensate the heavy losses in sweat, this problem may arise. So the first step is to drink much more water than you drink now.

Second step is to make it a rule to control the intake of non-veg. Try to eat it only once a day and preferably only at lunch so that there is time to digest it. Soups and gravies of meat or fish produce high levels of uric acid, so please avoid.

Athletes and sportsmen like tennis, badminton, cricket, etc. players seem quite susceptible to this. This could be due to increased perspiration during training and insufficient water consumption. Also players seem to be in and out of special training camps where lots of non-veg food is available. They eat large amounts of it thinking it will build their body. Please note that at one time you should not eat more than 2-3 pieces of chicken or fish. When you do the excess gets converted to fat and a lot of uric acid is also produced. You need the protein but try to consume milk, egg white and dhals along with the non - veg so that you eat lesser quantities of meat, fish and poultry.

Custard apple, chickoo, beans, peas, pulses-channa, rajma, moong sprouts and spinach too must be avoided when there is pain. These foods contain high amount of purine, which gets converted to uric acid in the body. We have also observed sudden gout attacks of pain after the consumption of too much alcohol, so please avoid this.

Any kind of fasting and feasting can bring on an attack of pain. When fasting - tissues in your own body are broken down and uric acid is formed from this. When you over eat, lots of food is broken down at the same time and uric acid concentrations in the blood rises, leading to attacks of pain.Men are more prone to this condition than women. The level in the blood should not be more than 6mg/dl for men and 5mg/dl for women. Some women develop this after menopause.