The risk of heart attacks and strokes temporarily increases in the four months after a gout flare, finds a study.

The research, by experts at the universities of Nottingham and Keele in the UK, showed that gout patients who suffered from a heart attack or stroke were twice as likely to have had a gout flare in the 60 days prior to the event, and one and a half times more likely to have a gout flare in the 61-120 days prior.

"The findings suggest that gout flares are associated with a transient increase in cardiovascular events following flares," said lead author Professor Abhishek from the School of Medicine at Nottingham.

Gout is a common form of arthritis that is caused by high levels of uric acid, a chemical produced by the breakdown of tissues in the body and present in certain foods and drinks.

At high levels, uric acid is deposited in and around joints as needle-shaped urate crystals. Once released from their deposits, these crystals cause severe inflammation manifesting as joint pain, swelling, redness, and tenderness that often lasts for 1-2 weeks. These episodes, called gout flares, often recur. Inflammation is also a risk factor for heart attack and stroke.

In the study, published in the journal JAMA, the team used anonymised data from 62,574 patients with gout treated in the National Health Service in the UK. Of these, 10,475 experienced a heart attack or stroke after the diagnosis of gout, while others of similar age, sex, and duration of gout, did not experience such events.

Gout patients who died from a heart attack or stroke had over four times the odds of experiencing a gout flare in the preceding 0-60 days and over twice the odds of gout flare in the preceding 61-120 days.

"People with recurrent gout flares should be considered for long-term treatment with urate-lowering treatments such as allopurinol. This is a reliable way of removing urate crystal deposits and providing freedom from gout flares.

Patients should also be considered for concurrent treatment with anti-inflammatory medicines such as colchicine for the first few months because urate-lowering treatments may trigger gout flares in the short term," Abhishek said.

"People with gout should be encouraged to adopt a healthy lifestyle with appropriate treatment of conditions such as high blood pressure, high cholesterol, obesity and diabetes to minimise their background risk of heart attack and stroke," he noted.