Today's Health Alert - Beer Causes Gout

From the AP is breaking news of a study to be published this week in The Lancet medical journal that found:

...beer was the worst choice for gout, followed by spirits. It concluded that moderate wine drinking did not appear to be a problem, but experts said there were too few men in the study who drank a lot of wine to be sure that wine is a safer alternative.

In the study, conducted by scientists at Massachusetts General, Brigham and Women's Hospital, and Harvard's medical and public health schools in Boston, researchers followed 47,150 men with no history of gout for 12 years.

When the study ended in 1998, 730 men, or nearly 2 percent, had developed gout.

Update your health alert response procedures accordingly.