Is Avocado Good for Gout? Purines, Fats and Potassium

TL;DR

• Avocado is low in purines (about 20 mg per 100 g) and has almost no sugar or fructose.
• It brings unsaturated fat, fiber and potassium, and it fits the eating patterns linked to lower gout risk.
• No study shows avocado itself lowers uric acid. It’s a good food to build meals around, not a treatment.

Yes, avocado is a good food for gout. It’s low in purines, nearly free of sugar and fructose, and it can replace less helpful fats like butter, mayonnaise and processed cheese on the same plate.

What it isn’t is a uric acid remedy. A search of the medical literature turns up no human studies testing avocado on uric acid or gout, and claims that it “flushes” uric acid go well beyond the evidence.

How many purines are in avocado?

Kaneko and colleagues (2014) measured avocado at 18.4 mg of purines per 100 g, in their lowest group, and the USDA & ODS-NIH Purine Database (2025) includes that analysis, which rounds to about 20 mg per 100 g. Here’s how that compares:

Food	Purines (mg/100 g)	Typical serving	Purines per serving
Avocado	20	⅓ avocado (50 g)	~10 mg
Avocado	20	1 whole Hass (136 g)	~27 mg
Banana	5	1 medium (120 g)	~6 mg
Potato	5	150 g	~8 mg
Broccoli	70	1 cup (90 g)	~63 mg
Spinach	110	3 cups raw (85 g)	~94 mg
Egg	0 (under 2.5)	1 large (50 g)	~1 mg
Chicken breast, raw	160	3 oz (85 g)	~136 mg

All values from the USDA & ODS-NIH Purine Database (2025), rounded to the nearest 5 mg; the avocado figure is the Kaneko et al. 2014 analysis. Spinach and chicken breast vary between analyses (published values range from about 50 to 170 mg per 100 g for spinach and 130 to 290 for chicken breast).

Even a whole avocado has about a fifth of the purines in a 3-ounce chicken breast. And plant purines behave differently: in the Health Professionals Follow-Up Study of more than 47,000 men, purine-rich vegetables weren’t linked to higher gout risk, while meat and seafood were.

What nutrients in avocado matter for gout?

From USDA FoodData Central:

Nutrient	Per 100 g	Per ⅓ avocado (50 g)	Per whole Hass (136 g)
Calories	160	80	227
Total fat	14.7 g	7.3 g	21 g
Monounsaturated fat	9.8 g	4.9 g	13 g
Fiber	6.7 g	3.4 g	9.2 g
Potassium	485 mg	243 mg	690 mg
Total sugar	0.7 g	0.3 g	0.4 g
Fructose	0.1 g	0.06 g	0.1 g
Vitamin C	10 mg	5 mg	12 mg

Per 100 g and per ⅓ avocado use USDA’s “all commercial varieties” entry; whole-fruit figures use the California (Hass) entry.

A few things stand out:

• Almost no fructose. Unlike most fruit, avocado has only a trace of sugar. Fructose is the one sugar that raises uric acid directly, so avocado is a fruit you don’t need to count.
• Mostly unsaturated fat. The Arthritis Foundation’s gout cheat sheet lists avocados alongside olive oil under healthy fats to eat, and puts saturated fats from butter, cream and red meat on the avoid list.
• More potassium than a banana. Gram for gram, avocado has about 485 mg versus 358 mg in banana, according to USDA. For more on potassium, see are bananas good for gout.
• Plenty of fiber. A third of an avocado gives about 3.4 g.

Vitamin C is often mentioned too, but avocado’s amount is small: about 12 mg in a whole fruit. The studies on vitamin C and uric acid used around 500 mg a day, so avocado won’t get you there. The ACR’s 2020 gout guideline also advises against adding vitamin C supplements for gout. Our guide to whether vitamin C lowers uric acid covers the details.

Does avocado lower uric acid? What the evidence does and doesn’t show

What it doesn’t show. We couldn’t find a single clinical trial or cohort study in people that tested avocado on uric acid or gout flares. When you trace the “avocado lowers uric acid” claims, they mostly lead to rat studies of avocado seed extract, a part of the fruit people don’t eat.

What it does show is that the eating patterns avocado belongs to help:

• In a controlled feeding trial, the DASH diet (rich in fruit, vegetables, nuts and low-fat dairy) lowered serum uric acid by about 0.35 mg/dL overall, and by about 1.3 mg/dL in a small group whose levels started at 7 mg/dL or higher.
• In a 26-year study of 44,444 men, those whose diets looked most like DASH had a 32% lower risk of developing gout.
• A small study in healthy young women found that a vegetable- and fruit-rich diet made urine less acidic and increased uric acid excretion, compared with a protein-heavy diet with fewer vegetables. Uric acid dissolves better in less acidic urine.
• In a Korean national survey, men and women who ate more fiber were less likely to have high uric acid.

So avocado’s case is indirect but reasonable: it’s a low-purine, fructose-free, fiber- and potassium-rich food that fits a pattern shown to help. It’s one piece of a gout diet, alongside other foods that lower uric acid, not a substitute for medication when you need it.

Is avocado too high in potassium or calories?

Potassium. For most people, avocado’s potassium is a plus, especially for blood pressure. But gout often travels with kidney disease, and some people are told to limit potassium, particularly with advanced kidney disease or certain blood pressure medicines. If that’s you, check with your doctor before eating avocado daily. See gout and kidney disease.

Calories. A whole Hass avocado has about 227 calories. That’s worth knowing, because extra weight raises gout risk and the ACR recommends a weight-loss program for people with gout who are overweight. The reassuring data: in the Habitual Diet and Avocado Trial, 1,008 adults with larger waistlines who ate one large avocado every day for six months saw body-weight changes similar to those on their usual diet. The avocado didn’t reduce belly fat, but it didn’t add weight either. Our gout and weight loss guide covers the rest.

What’s the best way to eat avocado with gout?

The biggest benefit usually comes from what avocado replaces:

Instead of	Try	Why
Butter or mayo on a sandwich	Mashed avocado	Unsaturated fat instead of saturated
Bacon on a salad	Sliced avocado	Richness without meat purines or cured-meat sodium
Avocado toast on white bread	Avocado on whole grain toast with an egg	More fiber, extra protein with very few purines
Guacamole with a basket of salty chips	Guacamole with cucumber, peppers and carrots	Same dip, far less salt and refined starch
Fruit-juice smoothie	Avocado blended with milk or plain yogurt	Creamy, with dairy protein and no juice fructose

What about avocado oil and guacamole? Avocado oil is almost pure fat, so it carries essentially no purines or sugar, and it works well as an everyday cooking oil in place of butter. Guacamole keeps all the benefits of the fruit; homemade versions with lime, onion, tomato and cilantro add flavor without much else. Store-bought guacamole and guacamole-flavored dips vary a lot, so check the label for added salt and for how much avocado is actually in the tub.

Watch the company it keeps, too. Guacamole often arrives with margaritas or beer, and the alcohol is a much bigger gout issue than anything in the avocado. If you’re tracking meals, an app like Urica can show whether your avocado days also tend to be your lower-purine, lower-sugar days.

The Bottom Line

Avocado is a good fit for a gout-friendly diet: low in purines, nearly free of fructose, and rich in unsaturated fat, fiber and potassium. Its real value is in what it replaces on your plate and the eating pattern it supports, since diets built this way are linked to lower uric acid and fewer cases of gout. Don’t expect avocado on its own to lower your uric acid, keep portions to about a third or half of a fruit if you’re watching your weight, and check with your doctor if you’ve been told to limit potassium.

Sources

• Kaneko K, et al. Total purine and purine base content of common foodstuffs for facilitating nutritional therapy for gout and hyperuricemia. Biological and Pharmaceutical Bulletin, 2014.
• USDA FoodData Central. Avocados, raw, California.
• Juraschek SP, et al. Effects of the DASH diet and sodium intake on serum uric acid. Arthritis & Rheumatology, 2016.
• Lichtenstein AH, et al. Effect of incorporating 1 avocado per day versus habitual diet on visceral adiposity: a randomized trial. Journal of the American Heart Association, 2022.
• Arthritis Foundation. Gout Diet Cheat Sheet.

This article is for informational purposes only and is not medical advice. Talk to your rheumatologist or healthcare provider about your specific situation.