Gout Home Remedies: Celery Seeds and Gout

Celery seeds and gout is the 86th top topic in the Gout and You series, which is based on popular searches by GoutPal visitors.

Celery seeds, and raw celery, have been popular with gout sufferers for centuries. I’ve looked for research to support this for many years, but never found anything. Until today.

Before I reveal the new research, let’s look at some facts about celery. As a vegetable, it is average, as you can see in the gout foods table for vegetables. However, as a gout treatment, we need to consider celery seeds, which are much more concentrated. In particular, we need to look at one of the components of celery seeds – a flavonoid called luteolin.

A recent report investigating celery and gout has highlighted the value of luteolin to gout sufferers. I will do a more comprehensive review of luteolin in future. For now, let’s look at the most recent report, and see why celery seeds are important to gout sufferers.

In the recently published Effect of luteolin on xanthine oxidase: inhibition kinetics and interaction mechanism merging with docking simulation, Yan and colleagues investigate the value of luteolin to gout sufferers. They state:

Luteolin is one of the major components of celery and green peppers

This is not quite true with respect to celery, as it is celery seeds that have luteolin as a major component. As you can see from the list below, celery leaves do contain luteolin, but not as a major component. Peppers are better, but the best candidates, by far, are celery seeds and radicchio.

However you get your luteolin, it is clear from this investigation, that luteolin exhibits a significant inhibitory activity on xanthine oxidase. Like many early investigations, we need researchers to follow this up with controlled trials that can assess safe dosing. So far, the only safe dosing information I can find is a reference to a human study in A toxicological investigation of a celery seed extract having anti-inflammatory activity:

in a small clinical trial of 15 patients, a dose of 1,360 mg per day provided a 45–50% decrease in pain (Paul Sweeney, unpublished observations)

Luteolin Food Sources by energy

The following table lists all foods in the USDA database that contain luteolin. To match other tables, I have formatted the data to show values per 100 calories. Please see Gout Foods Tables Introduction for an explanation of each column.

Long_Desc	Luteolin (mg)	100 Kcal Serve(g)	Vitamin C (mg)	PRAL Score	Iron (mg)	GoutPal Index
Spices, celery seed	194.49	26	4	-9	11	-6.6
Radicchio, raw	165.13	435	35	-21	2	23.5
Thyme, fresh	44.80	99	159	-15	17	42.3
Peppers, sweet, green, raw	23.55	500	402	-15	2	144.4
Peppermint, fresh	18.09	143	45	-18	7	17.5
Peppers, serrano, raw	12.94	313	140	-15	3	54.4
Peppers, hot chili, green, raw	9.68	250	606	-13	3	207.9
Chicory greens, raw	9.04	435	104	-36	4	52.9
Juice, lemon, canned or bottled	8.71	476	118	-9	1	48.1
Spices, parsley, dried	6.76	34	43	-18	8	15.2
Celery, raw	6.56	625	19	-31	1	27.1
Lemons, raw, without peel	6.55	345	183	-8	2	66.1
Pumpkin, raw	6.27	385	35	-22	3	22.7
Lettuce, red leaf, raw	5.94	625	23	-19	8	14.9
Artichokes, (globe or french), raw	4.89	213	25	-11	3	12.7
Kohlrabi, raw	4.81	370	230	-21	1	89.0
Peppers, jalapeno, raw	4.62	345	409	-15	1	146.3
Peppers, sweet, yellow, raw	3.78	370	680	-13	2	234.9
Blueberries, frozen, unsweetened	3.53	196	5	-1	0	3.9
Spinach, raw	3.22	435	122	-51	12	57.7
Parsley, fresh	3.03	278	369	-31	17	122.2
Olives, ripe, canned (small-extra large)	2.43	87	1	-1	3	-1.7
Broccoli, raw	2.35	294	262	-12	2	93.8
Peppers, sweet, red, raw	1.97	323	412	-11	1	144.5
Melons, cantaloupe, raw	1.88	294	108	-15	1	45.7
Lettuce, green leaf, raw	1.73	667	61	-21	6	31.2
Watermelon, raw	1.53	333	27	-7	1	14.8
Rosemary, fresh	1.53	76	17	-13	5	6.9
Grapefruit, raw, pink and red, all areas	1.43	238	74	-6	0	29.7
Oranges, raw, navels	1.43	204	121	-6	0	45.0
Brussels sprouts, cooked, boiled, drained, without salt	1.39	278	172	-12	3	62.5
Cauliflower, frozen, cooked, boiled, drained, without salt	1.26	526	165	-9	2	62.2
Kiwifruit, green, raw	1.21	164	152	-9	1	56.3
Cauliflower, frozen, unprepared	1.21	417	203	-10	2	74.4
Cauliflower, cooked, boiled, drained, without salt	1.17	435	193	-6	1	69.9
Beets, raw	0.86	233	11	-12	2	10.3
Brussels sprouts, raw	0.77	233	198	-12	3	70.5
Cabbage, chinese (pak-choi), raw	0.69	769	346	-39	6	135.7
Cabbage, savoy, raw	0.67	370	115	-13	1	46.8
Peas, green, frozen, cooked, boiled, drained, without salt	0.51	128	13	3	2	2.0
Chives, raw	0.50	333	194	-16	5	69.9
Lotus root, raw	0.49	135	59	-11	2	24.8
Beans, snap, green, raw	0.42	323	39	-11	3	17.9
Oranges, raw, all commercial varieties	0.40	213	113	-8	0	43.5
Cabbage, raw	0.40	400	146	-11	2	56.3
Olives, pickled, canned or bottled, green	0.39	69	0	-1	0	0.7
Cauliflower, raw	0.36	400	193	-18	2	75.2
Blueberries, cultivated (highbush), raw	0.35	175	17	-2	0	7.8
Cabbage, red, raw	0.32	323	184	-14	3	68.6
Lettuce, cos or romaine, raw	0.29	588	24	-25	6	19.9
Carrots, raw	0.27	244	14	-14	1	13.4
Sweet potato leaves, raw	0.26	238	26	-22	2	19.6
Collards, raw	0.25	313	110	-18	1	47.3
Apples, raw, with skin	0.23	192	9	-4	0	6.5
Lettuce, iceberg (includes crisphead types), raw	0.21	714	20	-16	3	18.4
Watercress, raw	0.18	909	391	-52	2	163.2
Cabbage, chinese (pak-choi), cooked, boiled, drained, without salt	0.17	833	217	-62	9	102.0
Cabbage, chinese (pe-tsai), raw	0.13	625	169	-29	2	75.0
Tomatoes, red, ripe, canned, packed in tomato juice	0.12	588	55	-21	6	28.2
Cabbage, cooked, boiled, drained, without salt	0.09	435	163	-14	1	65.0
Onions, young green, tops only	0.07	370	50	-11	2	23.8
Alcoholic beverage, wine, table, red, Cabernet Franc	0.07	120	0	0	0	1.2
Strawberries, frozen, unsweetened	0.06	286	118	-8	2	43.9
Tomatoes, red, ripe, cooked	0.06	556	127	-19	4	53.2
Juice, Cranberry cocktail, bottled	0.06	185	78	-1	0	28.1
Gourd, dishcloth (towelgourd), raw	0.05	500	60	-9	2	27.4
Onions, raw	0.05	250	19	-5	1	10.6
Alcoholic beverage, wine, table, red, Cabernet Sauvignon	0.05	120	0	0	0	1.2
Taro leaves, raw	0.05	238	124	-27	5	51.4
Alcoholic beverage, wine, table, red	0.05	118	0	-3	1	1.9
Papayas, raw	0.05	233	142	-9	1	53.6
Yardlong bean, cooked, boiled, drained, without salt	0.04	213	34	-9	2	16.0
Mangos, raw	0.03	167	61	-5	0	24.1
Onions, sweet, raw	0.03	313	15	-5	1	9.7
Sweet potato, raw, unprepared	0.02	116	3	-7	1	4.6
Apples, raw, without skin	0.02	208	8	-3	0	6.3
Pineapple, raw, all varieties	0.02	200	96	-4	1	35.4
Apples, Red Delicious, raw. with skin	0.02	169	0	-3	0	3.0
Juice, grape, canned or bottled, unsweetened, without added ascorbic acid	0.02	167	0	-3	0	2.8
Apples, Fuji, raw, with skin	0.02	159	0	-3	0	2.9
Oil, olive, salad or cooking	0.01	11	0	0	0	0.0
Cranberry sauce, canned, sweetened	0.01	66	1	0	0	1.1
Cranberries, dried, sweetened	0.01	32	0	0	0	0.3
Plums, dried (prunes), uncooked	0.00	42	0	-6	0	2.9
Raisins, seedless	0.00	33	1	-4	1	1.9

If you have any questions about celery seeds or luteolin, please ask in the gout support forum.

I will publish the 85th topic in this series tomorrow. Please subscribe to my free gout information update service, to get email notification of all new topics: