I am writing up something about gout for my Drugs and Disease class take home exam.  As many might not know, gout is a disease that leads to swollen joints, often caused by build up of urate crystals (shown in picture, under a microscope) around your joints.  While there is definitely a dietary factor that contributes to gout formation, a genetic factor actually disposes us to be susceptible to this disease.  Other more primitive organisms such as fishes and non-primate mammals make a protein called uricase that is able to clear up uric acid from our system; in the case of humans, however, we all two common mutations in the uricase gene that renders the protein dysfunctional.  As a result, we tend to have a higher level of uric acid in our blood than organisms with functional uricase.  This is an example of yet another imperfection in us by having useless pieces of genetic information in our system.  Nonetheless, it has been shown that the presence of uric acid in our blood acts as an antioxident like vitamin C…so the high levels of uric acid in our blood isn’t necessarily bad.   But then you’ve got to consider the risk that we are placed on because of this genetic modification; we are more prone to developing gout, for example.  My advice for prevention?  Maybe eat more oranges and make sure you get enough of those vitamin C.