I like cherries. I like their taste, their texture, their color, their 
name. I like them fresh, I like them cooked into foods, and I love then in ice cream. I like them on the cover of Paul McCartney albums. If cherries do, in fact, help arthritis sufferers, that’s even better.
By Marcia Wood, originally published in Agricultural Research:
Results of a preliminary study by ARS scientists and their university colleagues suggest that some natural compounds in plump, juicy Bing cherries may reduce painful arthritic inflammation. Eating cherries may also help lessen the severity of other inflammatory conditions, such as cardiovascular disease or cancer.
Volunteers' plasma urate levels decreased significantly over the 5 hours after their meal of cherries. Levels of urate removed from the body in urine increased over those 5 hours.
These urate results strongly suggest that cherries can play an important role in fighting gout.
