If you're like most people, then you'll no doubt be surprised to hear that controlling your gout, uric acid levels and symptoms can be as simple as drinking orange juice!

A Spanish study published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition in September of 2003 showed that uric acid levels are lowered by the vitamin C in orange juice.

In the study, six women and six men were required to drink two glasses of orange juice every day for two weeks. They needed to drink a 250ml glass in the morning, and another one in the afternoon, for a total of 500ml per day. This typically meant that they were taking in an additional 250mg of vitamin C each day.

The rest of the diet throughout the two-week period, provided each of the participants with about 136mg of vitamin C a day for the men, and 112mg for the women. This made the daily intake of vitamin C for the male participants 386mg and for the female participants it was 362mg.

After the two-week period had passed, the level of vitamin C in the blood stream of the men had risen by 52 percent, while it had risen in women by 22 percent. However, it should be pointed out that the women had higher levels of vitamin C in their bloodstream to begin with.

But even better was the fact that after two weeks, the male participants had reduced their levels of uric acid by approximately 12.5 percent, while the women had reduced their levels by 6.5 percent. By the end of the vitamin C study every participant had reduced his or her gout uric acid levels.

Researchers consider this to be very important news; especially considering that it was only an increase of 250mg daily (compared to a typical vitamin C supplement, which is 500 to 1000mg) and the study only lasted only two weeks. They believe that drinking twice as much juice over a longer time period, for example a month or six months, or even a lifetime, could help to permanently reduce uric acid levels and prevent gout attacks because even greater reductions in uric acid level could be achieved.

However, keep in mind that this study was performed on healthy individuals' aged 20 to 32. Also most medications prescribed to reduce uric acid will lower levels more substantially and quickly than relying on vitamin C therapy alone. The upside of the Vitamin C approach is that it's a lot more pleasant than taking drugs and also cheaper. Plus there are none of the nasty side effects that many of the gout drugs have. But if you're thinking of using vitamin C to lower your uric acid levels, you should first speak to your doctor.

A substantially larger study performed in 2005 tested vitamin C's efficacy for reducing uric acid levels. Researchers from Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore Maryland and published their study results in the June Arthritis and Rheumatism journal of the same year which used dietary supplements of 500 mg instead of orange juice. The researchers saw similar reductions in uric acid levels.

This is important news, as it is vital for sufferers to reduce gout uric acid levels before permanent damage is done to the various affected joints.