Celery seeds and gout is the 86th top topic in the Gout and You series, which is based on popular searches by GoutPal visitors.

Celery seeds, and raw celery, have been popular with gout sufferers for centuries. I’ve looked for research to support this for many years, but never found anything. Until today.

Before I reveal the new research, let’s look at some facts about celery. As a vegetable, it is average, as you can see in the gout foods table for vegetables. However, as a gout treatment, we need to consider celery seeds, which are much more concentrated. In particular, we need to look at one of the components of celery seeds – a flavonoid called luteolin.

A recent report investigating celery and gout has highlighted the value of luteolin to gout sufferers. I will do a more comprehensive review of luteolin in future. For now, let’s look at the most recent report, and see why celery seeds are important to gout sufferers.

In the recently published Effect of luteolin on xanthine oxidase: inhibition kinetics and interaction mechanism merging with docking simulation, Yan and colleagues investigate the value of luteolin to gout sufferers. They state:

Luteolin is one of the major components of celery and green peppers

This is not quite true with respect to celery, as it is celery seeds that have luteolin as a major component. As you can see from the list below, celery leaves do contain luteolin, but not as a major component. Peppers are better, but the best candidates, by far, are celery seeds and radicchio.

However you get your luteolin, it is clear from this investigation, that luteolin exhibits a significant inhibitory activity on xanthine oxidase. Like many early investigations, we need researchers to follow this up with controlled trials that can assess safe dosing. So far, the only safe dosing information I can find is a reference to a human study in A toxicological investigation of a celery seed extract having anti-inflammatory activity:

in a small clinical trial of 15 patients, a dose of 1,360 mg per day provided a 45–50% decrease in pain (Paul Sweeney, unpublished observations)

Luteolin Food Sources by energy

The following table lists all foods in the USDA database that contain luteolin. To match other tables, I have formatted the data to show values per 100 calories. Please see Gout Foods Tables Introduction for an explanation of each column.

Long_Desc Luteolin (mg) 100 Kcal Serve(g) Vitamin C (mg) PRAL Score Iron (mg) GoutPal Index
Spices, celery seed 194.49 26 4 -9 11 -6.6
Radicchio, raw 165.13 435 35 -21 2 23.5
Thyme, fresh 44.80 99 159 -15 17 42.3
Peppers, sweet, green, raw 23.55 500 402 -15 2 144.4
Peppermint, fresh 18.09 143 45 -18 7 17.5
Peppers, serrano, raw 12.94 313 140 -15 3 54.4
Peppers, hot chili, green, raw 9.68 250 606 -13 3 207.9
Chicory greens, raw 9.04 435 104 -36 4 52.9
Juice, lemon, canned or bottled 8.71 476 118 -9 1 48.1
Spices, parsley, dried 6.76 34 43 -18 8 15.2
Celery, raw 6.56 625 19 -31 1 27.1
Lemons, raw, without peel 6.55 345 183 -8 2 66.1
Pumpkin, raw 6.27 385 35 -22 3 22.7
Lettuce, red leaf, raw 5.94 625 23 -19 8 14.9
Artichokes, (globe or french), raw 4.89 213 25 -11 3 12.7
Kohlrabi, raw 4.81 370 230 -21 1 89.0
Peppers, jalapeno, raw 4.62 345 409 -15 1 146.3
Peppers, sweet, yellow, raw 3.78 370 680 -13 2 234.9
Blueberries, frozen, unsweetened 3.53 196 5 -1 0 3.9
Spinach, raw 3.22 435 122 -51 12 57.7
Parsley, fresh 3.03 278 369 -31 17 122.2
Olives, ripe, canned (small-extra large) 2.43 87 1 -1 3 -1.7
Broccoli, raw 2.35 294 262 -12 2 93.8
Peppers, sweet, red, raw 1.97 323 412 -11 1 144.5
Melons, cantaloupe, raw 1.88 294 108 -15 1 45.7
Lettuce, green leaf, raw 1.73 667 61 -21 6 31.2
Watermelon, raw 1.53 333 27 -7 1 14.8
Rosemary, fresh 1.53 76 17 -13 5 6.9
Grapefruit, raw, pink and red, all areas 1.43 238 74 -6 0 29.7
Oranges, raw, navels 1.43 204 121 -6 0 45.0
Brussels sprouts, cooked, boiled, drained, without salt 1.39 278 172 -12 3 62.5
Cauliflower, frozen, cooked, boiled, drained, without salt 1.26 526 165 -9 2 62.2
Kiwifruit, green, raw 1.21 164 152 -9 1 56.3
Cauliflower, frozen, unprepared 1.21 417 203 -10 2 74.4
Cauliflower, cooked, boiled, drained, without salt 1.17 435 193 -6 1 69.9
Beets, raw 0.86 233 11 -12 2 10.3
Brussels sprouts, raw 0.77 233 198 -12 3 70.5
Cabbage, chinese (pak-choi), raw 0.69 769 346 -39 6 135.7
Cabbage, savoy, raw 0.67 370 115 -13 1 46.8
Peas, green, frozen, cooked, boiled, drained, without salt 0.51 128 13 3 2 2.0
Chives, raw 0.50 333 194 -16 5 69.9
Lotus root, raw 0.49 135 59 -11 2 24.8
Beans, snap, green, raw 0.42 323 39 -11 3 17.9
Oranges, raw, all commercial varieties 0.40 213 113 -8 0 43.5
Cabbage, raw 0.40 400 146 -11 2 56.3
Olives, pickled, canned or bottled, green 0.39 69 0 -1 0 0.7
Cauliflower, raw 0.36 400 193 -18 2 75.2
Blueberries, cultivated (highbush), raw 0.35 175 17 -2 0 7.8
Cabbage, red, raw 0.32 323 184 -14 3 68.6
Lettuce, cos or romaine, raw 0.29 588 24 -25 6 19.9
Carrots, raw 0.27 244 14 -14 1 13.4
Sweet potato leaves, raw 0.26 238 26 -22 2 19.6
Collards, raw 0.25 313 110 -18 1 47.3
Apples, raw, with skin 0.23 192 9 -4 0 6.5
Lettuce, iceberg (includes crisphead types), raw 0.21 714 20 -16 3 18.4
Watercress, raw 0.18 909 391 -52 2 163.2
Cabbage, chinese (pak-choi), cooked, boiled, drained, without salt 0.17 833 217 -62 9 102.0
Cabbage, chinese (pe-tsai), raw 0.13 625 169 -29 2 75.0
Tomatoes, red, ripe, canned, packed in tomato juice 0.12 588 55 -21 6 28.2
Cabbage, cooked, boiled, drained, without salt 0.09 435 163 -14 1 65.0
Onions, young green, tops only 0.07 370 50 -11 2 23.8
Alcoholic beverage, wine, table, red, Cabernet Franc 0.07 120 0 0 0 1.2
Strawberries, frozen, unsweetened 0.06 286 118 -8 2 43.9
Tomatoes, red, ripe, cooked 0.06 556 127 -19 4 53.2
Juice, Cranberry cocktail, bottled 0.06 185 78 -1 0 28.1
Gourd, dishcloth (towelgourd), raw 0.05 500 60 -9 2 27.4
Onions, raw 0.05 250 19 -5 1 10.6
Alcoholic beverage, wine, table, red, Cabernet Sauvignon 0.05 120 0 0 0 1.2
Taro leaves, raw 0.05 238 124 -27 5 51.4
Alcoholic beverage, wine, table, red 0.05 118 0 -3 1 1.9
Papayas, raw 0.05 233 142 -9 1 53.6
Yardlong bean, cooked, boiled, drained, without salt 0.04 213 34 -9 2 16.0
Mangos, raw 0.03 167 61 -5 0 24.1
Onions, sweet, raw 0.03 313 15 -5 1 9.7
Sweet potato, raw, unprepared 0.02 116 3 -7 1 4.6
Apples, raw, without skin 0.02 208 8 -3 0 6.3
Pineapple, raw, all varieties 0.02 200 96 -4 1 35.4
Apples, Red Delicious, raw. with skin 0.02 169 0 -3 0 3.0
Juice, grape, canned or bottled, unsweetened, without added ascorbic acid 0.02 167 0 -3 0 2.8
Apples, Fuji, raw, with skin 0.02 159 0 -3 0 2.9
Oil, olive, salad or cooking 0.01 11 0 0 0 0.0
Cranberry sauce, canned, sweetened 0.01 66 1 0 0 1.1
Cranberries, dried, sweetened 0.01 32 0 0 0 0.3
Plums, dried (prunes), uncooked 0.00 42 0 -6 0 2.9
Raisins, seedless 0.00 33 1 -4 1 1.9

If you have any questions about celery seeds or luteolin, please ask in the gout support forum.

I will publish the 85th topic in this series tomorrow. Please subscribe to my free gout information update service, to get email notification of all new topics:


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