Obesity significantly reduced the effectiveness of febuxostat-based urate-lowering therapy among men with gout, with those with obesity showing lower target achievement rates and more flares than their normal-weight counterparts.
"Personalized medication is necessary for obese male patients to prevent gout flares and achieve SU targets in the management of gout," the authors wrote.
This study was led by Zan Cheng, Shandong Provincial Clinical Research Center for Immune Diseases and Gout, the Affiliated Hospital of Qingdao University, Qingdao, China, and Xinmiao Xu, Yantai Yeda Hospital, Yantai, China. It was published online on February 10, 2025, in Rheumatology.
This study was limited by its single-center design and focus on only men, which may have affected the generalizability of the results. Dietary and lifestyle factors were not comprehensively documented despite patients receiving dietary education. Patients were grouped solely on the basis of BMI without considering other measurements such as waist circumference or waist-to-hip ratio.
This study was supported by grants from the National Natural Science Foundation of China, Taishan Scholar Programme of Shandong Province, and other sources. The authors reported no conflicts of interest.