Gout

My dad suffers from gout quite often (at all is too often). So, he tries to stay away from meat as much as possible. I don't know much about gout, but I'm guessing it's not just an issue of too much meat. Since he isn't in the best of health, I'd like to get him on a better diet, and convincing him to follow one will be the hard part, especially if it contains a lot of meat. It also doesn't help that my mom is a level 5 vegan. How do you think thrive would affect gout, and is there anything he needs to watch out for?

I'm not going to comment too much on this, because it really depends on the individual and it would be inappropriate for me to say anything specific in regards to your dad.  He would have to speak with his doctor about that.  In general, gout is more a factor of fructose and insulin resistance.  high purines like alcohol are also involved.  Kidney disease and certain medications (especially thiazides) may affect it as well. Meats have purines and if you are a set up for gout because of the other factors mentioned, then suddenly starting to eat a lot of protein could cause problems.  In general, the thrive guidelines would fit this nicely.  Jeff can comment more if he feels it is appropriate.  It's great you're trying to look out for your dad's health.  Good luck.

Gout is elevate uric acid levels(oversimplified). A by product of too much protein is uric acid. Which leads to the conclusion remove the protein, remove the gout. Its like saying to reduce your cholesterol eat less fat. As we all know it just doest work like that. 

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3572016/

Google "vegan + uric acid levels" - You will find that the more vegan someone is the more uric acid they have (above study). 

Im going to lock this post because this is an issue for a medical professional that knows your dads case. For anyone else reading this I will lock all questions of this genre.