What I would say is that although 'natural' is good, these articles seem a little biased against using medication. Certainly medications have side effects but the ones used to relieve gout are only used short term. Allopurinol which is used to prevent recurrence has been around for many years and at normal dose is generally well tolerated.Regarding sugar, I think it depends on what type of sugar and how much. Right now, I've been avoiding HFCS as much as possible (I use cane sugar, raw honey or stevia at home, only drink sugar sweetened drinks when out, or water) due to other concerns. I'm seeing references to higher gout issues in hfcs users.
An article I read (dont have the link) made distinctions between frutose and sucrose, and hfcs. The hfcs was very bad, and one of the ose's was worse than the other. frutose I believe.
It also said when looking at fruit juices, that the organic, nothing but juice was best. Avoid if you see added water, and added sugars, preservatives, etc.
Couple of links, take with grain of salt.
http://www.draxe.com/5-all-natural-ways-to-beat-gout
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/96164.php
http://articles.mercola.com/sites/a...uit-juice-and-soda-increase-risk-of-gout.aspx
i love horse riding. Despite that I would use a car to travel any long distance. Sure I run the risk of a high speed accident but it is a low risk. As I said, natural is great but we can still make use of modern knowledge.