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. 2023 Dec 1;9(4):e003600.
doi: 10.1136/rmdopen-2023-003600.

Lifestyle factors predict gout outcomes: Results from the NOR-Gout longitudinal 2-year treat-to-target study

Till Uhlig  1   2 , Lars Fridtjof Karoliussen  3 , Joseph Sexton  3 , Tore K Kvien  3   2 , Espen A Haavardsholm  3   2 , Hilde Berner Hammer  3   2
Affiliations

Lifestyle factors predict gout outcomes: Results from the NOR-Gout longitudinal 2-year treat-to-target study

Till Uhlig et al. RMD Open. .

Abstract

Objective: Gout is associated with lifestyle, body mass index (BMI) and comorbidities, including dyslipidaemia. We studied how in actively treated patients, anthropometric measures and lipid levels changed over 2 years and whether they predicted gout outcomes.

Methods: Patients with a recent gout flare and elevated serum urate (sUA) received gout education and treat-to-target urate-lowering therapy over 1 year. Anthropometric measures with BMI, waist circumference (WC) and waist-height ratio (WHR) as well as lipid levels were measured yearly over 2 years. We examined whether baseline anthropometric measures and lipid levels were related to flares and to achieving the sUA target.

Results: At baseline, patients (n=211) were with mean age of 56.4 years and 95% were male. Over 2 years, anthropometric measures were largely unchanged while cholesterol and low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C) were reduced at year 1. Anthropometric measures were associated with presence of tophi. Higher baseline WC (OR: 0.96 per cm, 95% CI: 0.93 to 0.99) decreased and high level of high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (OR: 5.1 per mmol/L, 95% CI: 1.2 to 22.1) increased the chance of sUA target achievement at year 2. High LDL-C (OR: 1.8 per mmol/L, 95% CI: 1.2 to 2.6) predicted the chance of having a gout flare during year 2.

Conclusion: In actively treated patients with gout, anthropometric measures were largely unchanged over 2 years and lipid levels were reduced. High WC and lipid levels predicted unfavourable gout outcomes after 2 years.

Keywords: arthritis; gout; lipids; therapeutics.

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Conflict of interest statement

Competing interests: TU reports personal fees from Grünenthal and Novartis, outside the submitted work. LFK has nothing to disclose. Dr Sexton has nothing to disclose. TKK reports grants and personal fees from AbbVie, MSD, UCB, Hospira/Pfizer, Eli-Lilly, grants from BMS, personal fees from Roche, Hikma, Orion, Sanofi, Celltrion, Sandoz, Biogen, Amgen, Egis, Ewopharma and Mylan, outside the submitted work. EAH reports personal fees from Pfizer, UCB, Eli Lilly, Celgene, Janssen-Cilag, AbbVie and Gilead outside the submitted work. HBH reports personal fees from AbbVie, Lilly and Novartis, outside the submitted work.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Flow diagram of NOR-Gout participants.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Categories for (A) body mass index and (B) waist–height ratio over 2 years with counts and 95% CIs.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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