Gout Burden in Adolescents and Young Adults on the Rise Globally, Study Finds

A study in RMD Open aimed to report the global, regional, and national rates and trends of annual incidence, point prevalence, and years lived with disability (YLD) for gout in adolescents and young adults. The researchers conducted a serial cross-sectional study of gout burden in the young population using data from the Global Burden of Disease Study (GBD) 2019.

“To our knowledge, this is the first study to describe the gout burden and its changing trends among individuals aged 15 [to] 39 years from 1990 to 2019 at the global, regional, and national levels, by age, sex, and SDI [sociodemographic index],” the authors of the study stated.

Researchers analyzed gout burden in a young population by extracting rates of incidence, prevalence, and YLD from the GBD Study 2019. They then calculated the average annual percentage changes (AAPCs) at the global, regional, and national levels between 1990 and 2019 based on SDI.

In 2019, the number of cases of gout in individuals aged 15 to 39 years was 5.21 million worldwide, with an annual incidence increase from 38.71 to 45.94 per 100,000 population between 1990 and 2019  (AAPC, 0.61; 95% CI, 0.57-0.65). The increase was observed across all sociodemographic indices and age subgroups, with males accounting for 80% of the gout burden. High-income regions of North America and East Asia were facing a substantial increase in gout incidence and YLD.

Moreover, the researchers found that high-income North America and East Asia were facing a substantial increase in gout incidence and YLD simultaneously. Lowering high body mass indexes could reduce 31.74% of the gout YLD globally in 2019, varying regionally and nationally from 6.97% to 59.31%.

“Rapidly and substantially growing rates of gout in the young population are a public health issue globally in both developed and developing regions and countries,” the researchers wrote, “Improving representative national-level data on gout in younger populations, interventions for obesity, and increasing awareness about gout early detection and treatment in the young population are strongly suggested.”

Source: RMD Open