Evans PL, et al. - Authors evaluated the risk of incident gout associated with obesity, hypertension and diuretic use. The risk factors for incident gout are obesity, hypertension and diuretic use, each more than doubling the risk vs those without these risk factors. Clinicians should recognise the patients with these risk factors as being at greater risk of developing gout. Appropriate management and treatment options should be provided to these patients.

Methods

• Experts conducted a systematic review and meta-analysis of prospective and retrospective cohort studies in adults (age ≥ 18 years) from primary care or the general population, exposed to obesity, hypertension or diuretic use and with incident gout as their outcome.

Results

• Findings suggested that a total of 9923 articles were identified: 14 met the inclusion criteria, 11 of which contained data suitable for pooling in the meta-analysis.
• As per data, 4 articles were identified for obesity, 10 for hypertension and six for diuretic use, with four, nine and three articles included respectively for each meta-analysis.
• A 2.24 times greater likeliness of gout was seen in individuals with body mass index ≥ 30kg/m² (adjusted relative risk 2.24 (95% confidence interval) 1.76-2.86).
• Compared to the normotensive individuals, hypertensive individuals were 1.64 (1.34-2.01) and 2.11 (1.64-2.72) times more likely to develop gout (adjusted hazard ratio and relative risk respectively).
• Results demonstrated an association of diuretic with almost 2.5 times the risk of developing gout compared to no diuretic use (adjusted relative risk 2.39 (1.57-3.65)).