Uric acid: friend or foe? Uric acid and cognitive function "Gout kills more wise men than simple".

OBJECTIVE: The association between hyperuricemia and cardiovascular risk is widely known, and hyperuricemia is associated with many pathological conditions due to its effect on the endothelial function and metabolic homeostasis. The aim of this study was to verify whether the available literature may support the hypothesis that uric acid has a protective and stimulating effect on the cerebral cortex. MATERIALS AND METHODS: We reviewed the actual knowledge of the positive effects of uric acid in terms of antioxidant action, neuroprotection, cognitive function, and intellectual performance. CONCLUSIONS: Uric acid has a stimulating effect on the cerebral cortex, and this could have allowed humans, compared with other animals, to develop higher brain mass volume, better intellectual performances, and maybe evolutionary supremacy. On the other, a growing body of evidence is accumulating on the independent association between uric acid and cardiovascular risk. A careful interpretation of uric acid levels is appropriate and necessary in different kinds of patients, both at risk of cardiovascular or neurodegenerative diseases, due to its contrasting significance.

Left kidney: an unusual site of cocaine-related renal infarction. A case report.

Acute renal infarction is a well known, although relatively unfrequent, cause of flank pain resistant to administration of spasmolytic and nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs. We present an original case of a 41-year-old man, complaining of acute severe left flank pain, resistant to common analgesic therapy, who was diagnosed of segmental renal infarction of a branch of left renal artery. Pathophysiology of renal damage in cocaine users is multifactorial, and it has been postulated that the right kidney was more prone to ischaemia. Left kidney represents an extremely unusual site of cocaine-related renal infarction.