Editorial policy

Sources we use

Clinical claims come from these sources, and from nothing looser:

• The 2020 American College of Rheumatology Guideline for the Management of Gout.
• The 2016 updated EULAR evidence-based recommendations for the management of gout: Richette P, Doherty M, Pascual E, et al. Annals of the Rheumatic Diseases, 2017, volume 76, pages 29–42. DOI: 10.1136/annrheumdis-2016-209707.
• NIAMS, the National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases.
• The Arthritis Foundation.

One product-safety warning, about colloidal silver, also cites the FDA and NCCIH. Every source, with the date it was accessed, is on Sources.

Supplement blogs, forums, social posts, product pages, and unnamed “studies show” sentences are not sources here.

Our experience and the sources

This site is written by a small team, some of whom live with gout. That experience shapes what we choose to write about and how plainly we try to say it. It is not a source: every medical statement comes from the cited guidelines and references, never from our own stories. We do not recommend products based on personal experience, and personal experience is never a substitute for a clinician.

What we will not print

• Medicine doses, titration schedules, or how long to take something.
• A serum urate target number, even when a guideline prints one. Your clinician sets the goal.
• Instructions to start, stop, or switch a medicine. Medicines are named. The choice is the clinician’s.
• Claims that anything cures gout, flushes or detoxes the body, or dissolves crystals at home.
• Invented statistics, study results, quotations, or effect sizes.

Claims are attributed in the sentence, for example “the 2020 ACR guideline recommends,” rather than with a badge. If a sentence would only be true with a number we are not willing to own, the sentence is cut.

Medical review

No named clinician has medically reviewed this site yet. Pages are written and checked against the sources above. If a named reviewer is added, About and this page will say who, and which pages they reviewed.

How updates happen

A page is updated when one of its sources changes, when an error is found, or when wording could be read as advice. The visible “Last reviewed” date near the top of each page changes when that page is checked again.

The sources page records when each source was accessed. When a guideline is replaced, the pages that rely on it are rechecked before the new version is cited.

Product links and medical claims

The site may later earn a commission from product links. A commission never changes a medical claim, never turns an ordinary item into a treatment, and never softens a warning. See the disclosure.

Corrections

If something here is wrong, it should be fixed. How to reach the site will be listed on the contact page.