Gout is a painful disease caused by the deposition of monosodium urate monohydrate crystals in the body. Several studies have suggested that having gout increases the risk of getting prostate cancer. Gout has been known since the day of Hippocrates to be more common in men than women, but is that sex difference due to androgens or estrogens?
The impact of raising or lowering testosterone levels on the SUA levels for men has been inconsistently reported. In one study, exogenous androgen injections decreased SUA levels in men with gout. However in a small contrasting study ADT reduced SUA levels.
This new study involved just under 500 men and demonstrated that SUA levels significantly decreased after 6 months of ADT. The study was designed in such a way that the authors could determine if testosterone deprivation, independent of estrogen levels, could influence SUA levels.
To be clear, this study did NOT suggest that ADT could significantly reduce the symptoms of gout. But it does suggest that ADT may, to some small extent, reduce the risk of getting gout.
To read the full article, please see:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6296534/
Park, J. W., Lee, J. H., Cho, H. J., Ha, Y. J., Kang, E. H., Shin, K., Byun, S. S., Lee, E. Y., Song, Y. W., & Lee, Y. J. (2018). Influence of androgen deprivation therapy on serum urate levels in patients with prostate cancer: A retrospective observational study. PLoS One, 13(12), e0209049. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0209049