The gout capital of Yorkshire is the spa town of Harrogate, according to a new medical survey.

The high incidence of the illness, which is associated with rich food and good wine, is possibly not surprising in a town recently found in a top business review to be the second most prosperous in the country.

More surprising, perhaps, is that Harrogate should be a centre for sufferers of the painful joint condition - given its past fame as a spa where people went to take the waters and cure just such problems.

Ironically Harrogate's healthy reputation may have laid the ground for present-day problems, according to the medical director of North Yorkshire Health Authority, Professor Mark Baker.

He said it was possible that gout sufferers came to Harrogate for the waters, then liked the place and settled there, so the inherited disorder that leads to gout may have become concentrated among the local population.

But Professor Baker said that was only a possibility. "It's more likely to be due to chance, and the effect of modern drugs, some of which are very good drugs in common usage."

He said gout was a disorder of the metabolism which prevented the breakdown in the body of nucleic acids or purines, which were found in heavy red wines like port.

But the situation was complicated because susceptible people might also find it was triggered by some drugs used for treating conditions like high blood pressure.

Professor Baker stressed that though the findings were interesting they were not a public health issue.

The survey, by the Royal Free Medical School, London, found the top town for gout was Guildford, with Merthyr Tydfil second. Harrogate was in the next layer of affected towns, along with Darlington, Grimsby and Hartlepool.

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