title: Seasonal variations of urate in a Swedish adult population.
abstract: Seasonality in the incidence and prevalence of gout has previously been reported but the cause of this seasonality in gout is not explained. The aim of this study was to evaluate possible seasonal variations of urate in a large unselected Swedish adult population. We analyzed 170,915 urate test results from patients at a tertiary care hospital between 2000 and 2016. The results were divided according to sex and sampling month of the year. The median urate values were overall higher in males compared to females and both males and females had peak urate concentrations in the summer months (June-August). There is a seasonal pattern for urate concentrations in a large Swedish population similar to the previously reported seasonality for gout. This may be clinically important and could contribute to the circannual variation of gout. The seasonal pattern should be recognized when evaluating patient results both in clinical practice and in research studies.
authors.affiliation: Department of Medical Sciences, Cardiology, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden.|Uppsala Clinical Research Center, Uppsala, Sweden.
authors.forename: Axel
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Åkerblom
authors.affiliation: Department of Medical Sciences, Clinical Chemistry, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden.
authors.forename: Johanna
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Helmersson-Karlqvist
authors.affiliation: Section of Rheumatology, Center of Research and Development, Uppsala University/Region of Gävleborg, Gävle, Sweden.
authors.forename: Tomas
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Weitoft
authors.affiliation: Department of Medical Sciences, Clinical Chemistry, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden. anders.larsson@akademiska.se.
authors.forename: Anders
authors.identifier: http://orcid.org/0000-0003-3161-0402
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Larsson
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D012621:Seasons; D013548:Sweden; D014527:Uric Acid / Q000097:blood*
chemical_list: D014527:Uric Acid
keywords: Biological markers; Circannual variation; Gout; Humans; Urate; Uric acid