Gout sufferer, Victor Konshin

The symptoms of his disease were excruciating and lasted up to weeks at a time, yet Victor Konshin had little choice but to endure them because the dozens of physicians he was consulting—like many others—mistakenly considered gout to be benign.

But the disease’s underlying cause, a buildup of uric acid known as hyperuricemia, was slowly killing him, said Konshin, a high-tech engineer who has studied more than 500 scientific research articles and texts on gout.

For years, Konshin suffered painful gout attacks, but following a particularly bad episode, he set out to learn all he could about gout and says what he learned was shocking. He has since written the book Beating Gout: A Sufferer’s Guide to Living Pain Free and is working to raising awareness of hyperuricemia.

“Hyperuricemia affects one in three Americans—even in those who don’t have gout, and it can be very dangerous” Konshin said.

“Hyperuricemia has been linked with many of the killers that plague us today including heart disease, liver disease, stroke, diabetes and it has even been identified as a major cause of obesity,” Konshin said “It is probably one of the most deadly, misunderstood and under-appreciated public health threats in the world today.”

“What’s worse is that most doctors are unaware