There is some evidence that, in our current obesogenic environment, fructose metabolism plays a large part. Fructose metabolism was important in survival in intermittent-starvation, low water, and low O2 situations. Now it just makes us fat. It's laid out very well here: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/joim.12993

Uric acid is part of the set of reactions in fructose metabolism - and there's some evidence that it can be interrupted by blocking uric acid production by one of the oral drugs used for gout (e.g. allopurinol).

Note that, once this metabolism is active, it is somewhat self sustaining, so it's not clear that blocking uric acid alone would be enough to get the body out of fat/water storage mode, but in conjunction with carbohydrate restriction or intermittent fasting, there do seem to be results.

Massive props to Richard Johnson, who figured this out while trying to track down why some of his patients were sick. He had an interview with Peter Attia on Attiia's podcast "Drive". IMO very much worth a listen - and worth getting your doctor to listen to as well (this is new enough stuff that they almost certainly didn't get this in med school).