- Posted January 27, 2026
Gout Drugs Might Also Help Heart Health, Researchers Find
Gout patients could be getting some heart-healthy added benefits from managing their condition effectively, a new study says.
Drugs that lower uric acid levels in the blood also appear to reduce a person’s risk of heart attack and stroke, researchers reported Jan. 26 in JAMA Internal Medicine.
“People with gout are at an increased risk of illnesses such as heart disease and stroke,” said senior researcher Abhishek Abhishek, a professor of rheumatology at the University of Nottingham in the U.K.
“This is the first study to find that medicines such as allopurinol that are used to treat gout reduce the risk of heart attack and stroke if they are taken at the right dose,” Abhishek said in a news release.
Gout is a common form of arthritis caused by high levels of uric acid in the bloodstream. This causes crystals to form in and around a person’s joints, leading to sudden flares of severe joint pain and swelling.
Doctors use drugs like allopurinol to get patients’ uric acid levels below 6 mg/dL, a level at which they experience fewer gout flares.
However, it’s not known whether that level might also help a gout patient’s overall heart health, researchers said.
For the new study, researchers analyzed health data for more than 109,000 adult gout patients gathered between January 2007 and March 2021.
About 27% of the patients had their uric acid levels fall below 6 mg/dL within a year of being prescribed gout medication. Researchers compared their heart health to that of gout patients whose uric acid levels didn’t reach that target.
Results showed that patients who reached the target treatment level of uric acid had a 9% lower risk of heart attack and stroke overall.
Those whose uric acid levels dropped lower, to less than 5 mg/dL, did even better — a 23% lower risk of heart attack and stroke, the study said.
Patients also had a higher 5-year survival rate if their uric acid levels reached or fell below the target, researchers said.
Finally, people who were at higher risk for heart health problems saw the strongest benefit, the study found.
“The findings of our study are very positive and show that patients with gout who were prescribed urate-lowering drugs and achieved serum urate levels of lower than 6 mg/dL within 12 months had a much lower risk of a heart attack or stroke over the next five years,” Abhishek said.
“Previous research from Nottingham showed treat-to-target urate-lowering treatment prevents gout flares. This current study provides an added benefit of reduced risk of heart attack, stroke and death due to these diseases,” he concluded.
This benefit might be because the drugs are lowering inflammation in the patients’ bodies, according to an accompanying editorial co-written by Dr. Pascal Richette, a professor of rheumatology at the Université Paris Cité in France.
“Gout is characterized by a state of low-grade chronic inflammation between flares and by marked systemic elevations of several proinflammatory cytokines,” the editorial pointed out.
“In this view, the cardiovascular benefit of the treat-to-target strategy observed in this study would arise indirectly, through the reduction of both chronic low-grade and acute inflammatory responses, rather than from lowering urate per se,” it added.
More information
The Arthritis Foundation has more on gout.
SOURCES: University of Nottingham, news release, Jan. 26, 2026; JAMA Internal Medicine, Jan. 26, 2026
