If is does, then just about everybody on Earth would have gout.

No.
I had gout for about 4 years. I could hardly walk for about 1 year. I took every drug on the market. The newest hot prescription drug back then was Naproxen. My gout went away on its own-but slowly.

Yes it definitely does. i know for myself that any cola, sarsaparilla & high caffeine drinks such as red bull & all those energy drinks give me gout in a very bad way. I used to drink LA ice cola for years until tow years ago i got a very bad gout attack & i had no idea what caused it. at first i thought it might be from beer, because i was under the impression that alcohol causes gout. but im only an occasional drinker so that ruled that out. The only thing i knew i drank a lot of was cola & red bull. so i stopped drinking both of them & the gout went away & i only got a minor bruised feeling every now & then in the right big toe joint.

To test this out i drank some bottles of coke about a month later. & you guessed it, i got another gout attack. not as bad as the first one though. but still bad enough. i never want to feel that pain again so i gave up drinking anything with cola & caffeine in it & i have been pretty much fine every since. sometimes i still get some bruised big toe feelings. like i have at the moment. thats why I'm writing this now. cos i was doing some more research. on this subject.

another thing is any diet soft drinks / soda pop drinks that have aspartame is not good for anyone who has these problems like gout & arthritis .

I have found that Soft drinks in moderation is ok, such as Lemonade, Dry ginger ale, ginger beer, plain old soda water with some fruit juice is good too.

Too much apple juice can give you that sore big toe feeling as well as Lime soft drink & Raspberry soft drink even though it had no caffeine, it has some chemical sweetener & citric acid in it. like i said, a glass or two of these drinks is ok if you have not gout symptoms. but if you drink bottle after bottle after bottle & nothing else, then you will get another gout attack. drink plenty of water in between glasses of soft drink to break it up a bit & everything should be fine.