It's Official: Drinking Causes Gout

It's official -- drinking causes gout. But if you must drink alcohol, drink wine, scientists say. For centuries, the painful, crippling joint inflammation has been immortalized and castigated by poets and playwrights -- more than a few of whom wrote from personal experience -- as the curse of heavy drinkers. But until a team of researchers from Massachusetts General Hospital took up the task, nobody had actually proved the link between the disease and the bottle.