Every disease that is faced by man has a colourful history behind it. Stories such as “Your brother's best friend's cousin beat leukemia by eating a dozen raw eggs a day” or “A guy in Kentucky woke from a 30-year coma after listening to nothing but William Shatner records for 2 days” litter the rich, social fabric of human history. Is it true or is it all an old wives tale? And if it is true, was this miracle cure just a coincidence or was it actually due to the unorthodox treatment?



One such tale that has been around for decades is the “connection” between cherries and gout. It is believed that if you dine on these ruby red orbs as soon as you begin to show the painful signs of gout, it will speed healing.

The tale goes as far as to say that if you incorporate cherries as part of your daily fruit intake, you may never even get gout to begin with.

While this medical rumour sounds like it was started by the Worldwide Cherry Federation in an attempt to boost sales, the connection between gout and the cherry can be traced back to 1950 and a doctor who cured himself of gout.

Dr. Ludwig Blau discovered that by eating between six to eight cherries a day, you could stave off the return of gout indefinitely, but was the doctor a quack or was he on to something?

As it turns out, cherries do help battle gout on two different fronts. The first is based on what cherries keep together. The collagen in the body is used to create connective tissue and it's this tissue that gout damages. Cherries help keep collagen strong and less susceptible to attacks of gout.

Cherries also contain a natural enzyme that helps the body to lower the uric acid levels in the blood. High levels of uric acid cause outbreaks of gout.

If that wasn't enough, cherries also have unique antioxidant properties that can assist in the body expelling larger amounts of uric acid than normal.

A recent study at the University of California – Davis bears out Dr. Blau's findings. The ten women who took part in the study enjoyed a breakfast of 45 cherries and then the testing began.

The study, performed by the Agriculture Research Service with the United States Department of Agriculture showed that the amount of uric acid that was expelled from the body after a breakfast of cherries was significantly higher. Scientists were able to measure the amount of uric acid present in the body before the subjects dined on their cherry-only meal, and then measured it a second time. The findings were matched by blood samples that were also taken.

While not all myths and legends about diseases and cures are accurate, you do find an occasional truth among the old wives tales, and in this case, cherries might not only be the most effective way to treat gout, but they are certainly one of the tastiest!