Does Dietary Vitamin C Intake Impact Gout Prevalence?

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Could the antioxidant properties of vitamin C have a relationship to gout risk? A recent study undertook this question and shared what they learned in Frontiers in Immunology.¹

The authors took cross-sectional data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey between 2013 and 2018. The 12,589 individuals in question were American, over 20 years of age, and provided answers regarding their dietary intake of vitamin C, gout, and other information.¹ In total, 5 percent of participants (652) had experienced gout. When looking at 4 different groups of participants, each falling into a different level of dietary vitamin C intake, the researchers found that the association between that intake and gout revealed an “L-shaped curve in a restricted cubic spline.”¹

Further analysis showed a significant inverse relationship between dietary vitamin C intake and gout incidence, more significant in females than in males. They also found that vitamin C levels had a negative association with hyperuricemia. Interestingly, they did not find an association of any kind with vitamin C supplementation outside of the diet.¹ The authors acknowledged that the cross-sectional design of the study precluded them from making conclusions on causality between vitamin C dietary intake and gout incidence. They recommend further longitudinal studies to address this aspect of the question. They also noted that cultural and dietary differences in other populations not represented in this study could limit the wider applicability of their findings.¹

Overall, the authors did conclude that this data set indicates an inverse relationship between dietary vitamin C intake and gout, and support a possible role of this vitamin in prevention of the disease.¹

Reference
1.        Zou Y, Liu Y, Li S. Association between dietary vitamin C intake and gout among American adults. Front Immunol. 2024;15. https://doi.org/10.3389/fimmu.2024.1431323