If you are concerned about whether or not you have normal uric acid levels, then you may benefit from visiting a doctor to learn more about your body with a blood test for uric acid. This test determines the exact amount of uric acid present within your blood at any given time. The benefit of this test is that it can help doctors to figure out exactly how well your body is producing and eliminating uric acid in the way that it should.
For those who are not familiar with uric acid, it is a type of chemical that can happen when the body begins to break down foods full of purines. Some of the most common beverages and foods that contain purines are anchovies, liver, dried beans, mackerel, wine, and beer. Purines also appear naturally in the body as a by-product of the breakdown of cells.
How Can We Have Normal Uric Acid Levels?
In most circumstances, the majority of our uric acid dispitates in the blood stream, moves throughout the kidneys, and removed from the body in the form of urine. Sometimes, you end up with too much of this acid, or doesn’t filter enough out, and in these cases, people begin to suffer from something known as “hyperuricemia”.
If you have particularly high levels of uric acid, then you may be more prone to suffering from a condition known as gout. Gout is a type of arthritis that generally causes swelling within the joints, particularly around the toes and feet, and is quite painful. Another reason why hyperuricemia might occur is because of cell death that takes place as a result of cancer treatments or cancer cells within the body.
Normal uric acid levels can also be altered if there is too little of this substance within your body. In this case, it is likely that you are suffering from kidney or liver disease. This is can be a sign of Fanconi syndrome, which is a disorder where the kidney stops you from getting various substances such as uric acid and glucose.
What Do Uric Acid Test Results Mean?
In order to have normal uric acid levels, you will need to understand that your ranges can vary according to gender. According to experts, the typical values for women are usually between 2.5 and 7.7 milligrams per deciliter, whereas the typical results for men are between 4.0 and 8.5 milligrams per deciliter. Crucially, you may find that the idea of what is normal will change according to where your test is being carried out.
High levels of uric acid in the body can indicate that you are making too much uric acid, or that your kidneys are unable to remove the right amount of uric acid from your body. However, it’s worth noting that the blood test for uric acid isn’t seen as a definitive test for the presence or onset of gout. In fact, the only test that can accurately and absolutely confirm the presence of gout is a test that examines the fluid of the joints for monosodium urate levels.
