American and Canadian scholars have found that drinking coffee can help prevent gout

A new large-scale study by researchers in the United States and Canada has found that drinking coffee can help reduce the level of uric acid in the body's blood and prevent gout.

Elevated levels of uric acid in the blood are a harbinger of gout. Gout, a disease characterized by joint pain and inflammation, is most common in adult men. Researchers from the University of British Columbia in Canada, Harvard Medical School in the United States and other institutions found that increasing daily coffee intake can significantly reduce blood uric acid levels.

The team followed nearly 46000 men over the age of 40 with no history of gout for 12 years. Statistical analysis found that people who drank more coffee had significantly lower levels of uric acid in their blood, and those who drank four to five cups of coffee a day were 40 percent less likely to develop gout than those who never drank coffee.

The researchers further analyzed and found that it was not the caffeine in coffee that played a role, because drinking decaffeinated coffee also reduced blood uric acid levels.

Coffee is one of the most widely consumed drinks in the world. In the United States, for example, more than half of Americans drink more than two cups of coffee a day on average. So the researchers believe that it is important to study the potential health effects of coffee. The findings are published in the June issue of the journal Arthritis treatment and Research. (Zhang Zhongxia / tr. by Phil Newell)