Tom Peterkin on gout

More alarming Scottish health statistics today including the little known fact that 10,000 overweight Scots suffer from gout - the condition commonly associated with corpulent toffs with a fondness for claret and rich food.
It will be of little consolation to those suffering from this painful affliction, which contrary to the popular image crosses all class barriers, that their symptoms were shared by Henry VIII, Sir Isaac Newton, William Pitt the Elder, Galileo and Theodore Roosevelt.
A famous Scottish sufferer was Simon Fraser, Lord Lovat - the wily veteran Jacobite known as the old fox who, in 1747, was the last person to be publicly beheaded in Britain.
As Lovat discovered, public executions can be even worse for one's health than gout. Happily, they went out of fashion some time ago.
But today's statistics do suggest that our politicians face a huge challenge to turn around Scotland's dismal health record.
They showed that 20% of Primary 1 children have been classified as overweight, including 7.9% as obese and 3.9% as severely obese.
It was Mary Scanlon, the Tory Health spokeswoman, who pointed out it has been estimated that obesity may have accounted for nearly 500,000 cases of high blood pressure, 50,000 cases of coronary heart disease, nearly 900 cancers, over 30,000 people with type 2 diabetes, 14,000 people with osteoarthritis as well as the 10,000 people with gout.
Food for thought as we lick our lips in anticipation of the Christmas booze and food fest.