The Study
Purine Content and Renal Acid Load Evaluation in Healthy Japanese Diets.
This study looked at what foods were on hospital and low-carb diet menus and counted how much purine and acid they had. It didn't follow people to see if they got sick — it just compared plates of food. So we can say low-carb menus had more purine, but we can't say they made people sick.
Analysis score
Maximum 44 for a cross-sectional study.
Where the score came from
This study looked at what people eat on low-carb diets versus hospital diets and found low-carb meals have way more stuff that can raise uric acid.
Where does this study sit?
Reviews of RCTs (Meta-analyses)
Max 100Randomized Trials
Max 90Reviews of Cohort Studies
Max 85Cohort Studies
Max 72Reviews of Case-Control Studies
Max 63Case-Control Studies
Max 58Cross-Sectional & Case Series
Max 50Expert Opinion
Max 544 / 100
Quality score
Snapshots of a population at a single point in time, or descriptions of small groups. Can identify correlations and prevalence, but cannot determine cause and effect.
Key takeaways
Summary
Based on the study abstract and findings.
- 1Yes—eating a typical low-carb diet could push uric acid levels higher, making gout or hyperuricemia worse, even if you're losing weight.
- 2Low-carb diets had 698 mg of purine per day (over 400 mg limit), 114g of protein, and a kidney acid load of 19 mEq/day—more than 4 times higher than hospital diets.
Score breakdown, methodology, conflicts of interest, evidence analysis & raw study data
Publication
Journal
Journal of nutritional science and vitaminology
Year
2023
Authors
Minori Sato, Yuka Kawakami, H. Arai
Related Content
Claims (6)
Low-carbohydrate diets produce a much higher acid load in the kidneys compared to standard hospital diets, leading to reduced uric acid excretion and higher levels of uric acid in the blood.
Healthy Japanese adults on low-carbohydrate diets consume about 698 mg of purine per day, which is above the 400 mg daily limit advised for people with hyperuricemia, while hospital diets provide 340–349 mg per day.
Diets with 113.8 grams of protein per day produce more purine and acid in the body than hospital diets with 68–69 grams of protein, and the higher protein amount directly leads to worse nutritional outcomes.
Low-carbohydrate diets contain more purine per gram of protein than standard hospital diets, resulting in higher purine exposure from protein sources even when total protein intake is the same.
Low-carbohydrate diets get most of their daily purine from meat, seafood, and seasonings, while standard hospital diets get most of their purine from cereals, beverages, and seasonings. The sources of purine differ significantly between these two types of diets.
Reducing calorie intake lowers the amount of uric acid in the blood because less purine is consumed in the diet.
Not medical advice. For informational purposes only. Always consult a qualified healthcare professional before making health decisions.