Beer’s Health Benefits, The Best New/Old Wives’ Tales We Could Find:
Don’t let the internet-myths & exaggerations about beer stop you.
Unlike a vitamin or a drug, there will probably be insufficiently-concentrated amounts of each substance in a single one to have a serious effect.
→So your only recourse is to just go pro & make sure to start drinking more! -For the rest of your life.
Besides believe it or not, drinking alcohol really does have actual health benefits.
Anyway, just in-case there is a grain of truth to long-term repeated-exposure benefits, and supported by the best study links we could find,
Let The Beer Health-Benefit BS Commence!…:
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Drinking Beer Reduces Your Mortality Risk
- Beer Is Good For Your Kidneys
- Beer Has Fiber In It
- Beer Is An Olde-Tyme Source Of B Vitamins
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Beer Has Antioxidants In It
- [Sapporo Would Like You To Think] Hot Beer With Honey Can Help Fight The Common Cold
- Beer May Help Fight Alzheimer’s
- Beer May Help Post-Workout Recovery
- Beer Has Fewer Calories Than Many Other Drinks
- Beer May Help Fight The Big C
- Beer May Help Reduce Cataracts
- Beer Is Antimicrobial
- Beer/Alcohol Consumption May Reduce The Incidence of Gallstones
- Beer May Reduce Mental Decline Due To Age
- Beer May Not Actually Give You A “Beer Belly”
Researchers found that regular, moderate drinkers were 15-19% less likely to die during a given time period than people who don’t drink at all.
Researchers in Finland discovered that beer keeps your kidneys from developing kidney stones.
Each bottle of beer reduced their probability by 40%. Increased Calcium, Potassium & Magnesium intake were also associated with fewer kidney stones. While higher fiber intake was associated with a higher risk.
Oops! Forget that last item. Beer actually has fiber in it. And in-general, dietary fiber’s pretty great for your blood-sugar and your heart.
And the Beta-Glucans that make up most of beer’s 5-10% RDA of fiber are particularly good at that. They even help your cholesterol levels.
Just like many fermented things, beer has Vitamin B. It even has 30% more than wine. Specifically, a standard lager has as much as 10% the RDA of B3, B6, B12, 1% of B1 & B2 and 5% that of Folate.
Doctors even recommended women drink it during pregnancy back in Ernest Hemingway’s time. And if you like Guinness, you’re in luck. The darker and more roasted a beer’s ingredients are, the better it is for your health in general.
(just remember that the filtering used on many commercial beers can remove vitamins & minerals and the alcohol can reduce the value of the vitamins left in it.)
Did we just say Guinness? Well, the darker and hoppier a beer is, the greater the antioxidants it has, too.
Where beer has a similar Level of antioxidants as wine, …some of them work even better!. -Particularly: one flavonoid called Xanthohumol that comes exclusively from Hops. And it’s anywhere from 4-6 Times stronger than the ones found in soy or citrus.
Not only that, but in one study Guinness was 2x as effective as Heineken at preventing blood-clots.
And!, the antioxidants found in beer are more effective than vitamins like C&E at keeping cholesterol in-check.
According to a hopeful, but biased and exaggerated study conducted by a Japanese brewing company, a compound in beer called Humulone can help fight off the common cold.
The real trick turned out to be just getting a hot drink, because there’s hardly enough humulone in Sapporo, or any other beer, to help that much.
The antioxidants and phytochemicals in beer don’t just work on blood-clots and cholesterol. They also can help ward-off Alzheimer’s, including our newest old-friend, Xanthohumol.
-But wait, it gets better! According to a 2008 study by the University of Alcala in Spain, the amount of Silicon in 2 beers per day may prevent the aluminum you get to damage brain tissues.
-Aluminum has of-course, been correlated with the disease. Thanks, powerful antiperspirants!
Total Urban Myth.
Beer may only help you recover if you drink Just 1 Light Beer after exercise, BUT only as much as a plain-old water would.
The U. Granada study by Manuel Castillo could barely put a positive light on it.
And Drinking non-alcoholic beer showed much better results on inflammation & respiratory infections for marathoners than any other variant studied.
The only one that has a shot so far is Lean Machine, which is almost the same as the light-beer + salt that won the Australian study.
The final nail in the Granada Study? Alcohol keeps your muscle from rebuilding itself after exercise.
-At least fruit juices. Most average beer has just a few less calories than orange juice. Guinness Stout can have as much as 25 fewer calories.
The real kicker? Each beer will have anywhere between 50% and 60% less carbohydrates (fast carbs, too) per glass than just about any fruit juice you can drink.
Remember our new pal Xanthohumol from hops?
Well, researchers in Germany and Oregon State U. have found that when it’s concentrated, it shows promise at preventing or even being toxic to breast, prostate, colon and ovarian cancer cells.
Researchers from the US & Canada presented results at an international chemical conference showing beer, especially darker, higher-antioxidant beer prevented the mitochondrial damage that occurs in the cells of the lens.
And a critique by Boston U. found that 1-2 drinks per day seems to be the sweet-spot.
Due mostly to the hops used in it, pH, CO2, and a little alcohol, beer may have some antimicrobial properties.
More interesting still, if it’s your drink of choice, is that moderate alcohol consumption both appears to boost the body’s immune-system and also make vaccines more effective.
Btw, would have been an assistant on that UCR experiment For-Free! just to witness the ungodly-madness of the monkeys who turned out to be the heavy-drinkers.
I hope they were all named “Ozzy”.
Researchers at the Harvard School of public health and others found that alcohol intake of even 1 ounce – 1 drink a day, including wine, spirits, or yes, beer, reduced the incidence of gallstones in women by up to 20%.
Several studies, including one exclusively on women, have found that not only does moderate alcohol consumption benefit your heart health, but it also slows mental decline as you age.
Similar to the way Hops compounds protected against Alzheimer’s in one previous note, they also may protect against brain-cell damage the same way antioxidants do.
And just like the benefits conferred on the circulatory system from alcohol thinning the blood a bit & helping it to just keep moving, similar benefits were conferred on the brain, just by the alcohol in beer helping it to circulate a little better.
A few studies have suggested that beer does not give you a “Beer Belly”. It’s just an excess of calories. And the type of drinking that gets you that many calories is more along the line of binge-drinking.
There may be an association between alcohol-consumption, carbonation stimulating production of stomach-acids, or even alcohol-dehydration-based Thirst mistaken for hunger. The last of which can lead to consumption of high-caloric, fatty, pub-grub style foods.
But on-balance, a 12 ounce 4.5% alcohol Beer itself is no more fattening than the equally-caloric 6 ounce glass of wine at 12% alcohol.
As a matter of fact, residual fast-carbs in wine or mixers, or even fat in drinks like The Dude’s favorite White Russian may be more of a worry.
(btw, No. Alcohol-Calorie-Wasting does not apply to unless you’re Ernest Hemingway.)
To Your Newly-Improved Health! Or at least just the next “healthy” beer!
Photo Credits:
Links:
• Source: PulpTastic & Metro
• via: The Chive
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