High Uric Acid Level: Causes, Symptoms & Treatment

Risk Factors of Uric Acid

Risk factors for high blood uric acid levels include the following:

• Weight: Individuals who are severely overweight or obese are at a higher risk of having high uric acid.

• Diet: Frequent consumption of foods rich in purines can lead to high levels of uric acid. These foods include red meat, organ meat & certain seafood such as scallops, molluscs & tuna. Consumption of foods & drinks sweetened with fructose syrup can also lead to high uric acid levels.

• Kidney Disease or Injury: Kidney damage can reduce kidney efficiency. This can result in improper filtration of waste products & therefore, high uric acid.

Complications of Uric Acid 

It has been reported that only around one-third of people with hyperuricemia experience symptoms. Although hyperuricemia is not a disease, if left untreated for a long time, can cause numerous diseases, including: 

• Tophus Gout: This is a type of arthritis. Hyperuricemia can cause the formation of urate crystals (tophi) that settle in the body’s joints, leading to inflammation & pain. Every 2 in 10 people with hyperuricemia gets gout. Symptoms of gout include:
  • Redness & inflammation in joints
  • Inability to move affected joints comfortably
  • Pain in the joints
  • Stiffness of joints
  • Joints appearing deformed
• Kidney Stones: Uric acid crystals can cause the accumulation of stones within the kidney. Mostly, these stones are quite small & are therefore easily removed from the body during urination. However, at times these stones may grow too large to be removed naturally, causing immense pain & blocking of the urinary tract. Symptoms of kidney stones include:
  • Blood in the urine (hematuria)
  • Pain while urinating 
  • Nausea 
  • Pain or discomfort in the lower back, abdomen or groin
  • Increased urge to urinate
  • Urine having an abnormally unpleasant or foul smell

Uric Acid Treatment

High levels of uric acid & its associated symptoms can be managed in the following ways:

• Diet Control: It is important to control the number of purines present in your diet to prevent uric acid levels in the body from increasing further. Foods rich in purines such as meat, seafood, beans etc., can also cause gout pain to flare up & become worse. Therefore, by ensuring a controlled intake of purines the symptoms of hyperuricemia can be controlled. 

• Weight Loss: Gout caused by high uric acid causes pain & swelling of joints, which worsens with increase in body weight. Therefore, losing weight can help reduce stress on these joints leading to a reduction in pain.

• Non-Steroidal Anti-Inflammatory Drugs (NSAIDs): These are prescribed to patients with gout to help reduce pain & joint inflammation.

• If the tophi causing gout becomes too large & starts causing damage to surrounding muscle & tissue, they must be surgically removed.

• To treat kidney stones 5 millimeters or smaller, you may be advised to drink a lot of water in order to allow these stones to pass out through urine.

• In order to treat kidney stones of sizes 5 millimeters or larger, doctors may prescribe medications to relax muscles of the urinary tract. This allows the stones to pass out of the body with reduced pain.

• For the treatment of large kidney stones, lithotripsy may be used. In this procedure, the stones are non-invasively broken down into smaller pieces through high frequency sound waves. These smaller stones can then be passed out through urination.

• Stones greater than 10 millimeters require surgery to be removed.