Ulcerative Colitis

The gout study involved about 760 patients and compared febuxostat with allopurinol, both of which remove excess urate from the blood.

Urate deposits crystals in the feet and other joints, causing bouts of painful inflammation.

Over a year, febuxostat was three times more effective at lowering urate to a healthy level.

But the febuxostat patients only had slightly fewer gout attacks by the end.

"You need to be able to follow these patients, I believe, much longer" to see if febuxostat reduces gout attacks better, said lead researcher Dr.

Michael Becker, a rheumatologist and professor at University of Chicago.

Still, he said febuxostat will be helpful to the many patients who cannot take allopurinol or have weak kidneys.

"For them, it's going to be a big advance," said Dr.

Petros Efthimiou, a rheumatologist at University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey in Newark.

Gout, a type of arthritis, is so painful patients cannot tolerate bedding touching tender spots.

Yet there have been no new drugs since 1964.

Up to 3 million Americans have gout, the majority of them men, Efthimiou said.

"We're seeing it more and more," Efthimiou said, with the population's increasing obesity and diets rich in purines, found in foods such as asparagus, meat gravies and broth, mushrooms and organ meats.

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