The UK Gout Society is a registered charity, launched in December 2002.

Its mission and objectives are :-

To provide basic information about this metabolic disorder for people who suffer from gout.
To provide gout sufferers with further information about the causes and treatment of gout, and about organisations that are committed to education, health promotion and the prevention of gout.
To increase public awareness and knowledge about this painful, potentially disabling, but eminently treatable disorder.
Background

A community-based questionnaire survey of more than 1109 people undertaken by Omnimas in the UK in 2002 revealed the following misconceptions about gout, its symptoms, clinical manifestations, prevalence and causes.
 
Popular misconceptions from the 2002 survey include:
 
1 Surprisingly, 76% of people did not know that gout was extremely painful
 
2 While 52% correctly thought that the first symptoms of gout usually occurred in the toes; 32% said legs, 4% said kidneys, 1% said nose and 20% did not know.
 
3 17% of people thought that gout was caused by an infection, whilst 9% thought that smoking was the cause.
 
4 There was a very wide range of opinions concerning the main symptoms experienced by patients with gout. These included 1% who thought that gout resulted in gangrene of the toes and 1% who believed that gout led to bloating of the stomach.
 
5 42% of people thought perforated ulcers were more common than gout while 6% thought that anthrax was more common then gout.
 
This poor level of public knowledge was a matter of concern for some hospital specialists and general practitioners as well as for patients with gout. Consequently, with the aid of an unrestricted educational grant from Merck Sharp & Dohme, the UK Gout Society has been launched to try and increase public awareness and understanding of this condition as well as to provide information about the disorder for those who suffer from gout.
 
 
UK Registered Charity No. 1093748