A new study finds that men who smoke have a decreased risk of developing gout, but that reduction does not hold true among women.

About 8.3 million Americans, or four percent of the U.S. population, have gout, which is an inflammatory form of arthritis.  Gout is caused by too much uric acid in the blood, and previous studies show that smokers tend to have lower levels of serum uric acid than do nonsmokers.

Asian researchers analyzed data from 53,213 individuals with a broad range of smoking habits who were part of the Singapore Chinese Health Study.  They found a 27 percent decreased risk for the male smokers, but there was no significant risk reduction for the women who smoked.

This research, which appears online in Arthritis Care & Research, confirms a U.S. study that was done in 2014.  In that study, Stanford University of Medicine researchers looked at 54 years of follow-up data from the Framingham Heart Study.  They found an overall 32 percent reduction in the risk of gout. That study also found that decreased risk was far greater in men than in women (32 percent vs. eight percent.)