Beer And Health
Drink beer. You'll live longer
and be happier. You won't get fat. In fact, you may weigh
less. You'll boost your metabolism, improve your health and
reduce your risk of clogged arteries, heart attack and
cancer. What more could you want?
The 12 benefits of drinking beer:-
- Beer keeps your kidneys healthy
A Finnish study singled out beer among other alcoholic
beverages, finding that it was better for your kidneys. In
fact, each bottle of beer you drink reduces the risk of
developing kidney stones by 40%.
- Beer for better digestion Beer,
and especially dark beer, contains up to one gram of soluble
fibre* in each 30 cl glass - unlike wine, which doesn't
contain any fibre at all. Fibre plays an important role in
intestinal transit (a fibre deficiency can cause gastric and
intestinal disorders such as constipation or diarrhoea).
- Beer to lower your bad
cholesterol The fibre in beer can also help reduce your
levels of LDL cholesterol, i.e. the bad type of
cholesterol.
- Beer can increase your vitamin
B levels Beer contains several B vitamins (B1, B2, B6 and
B12). A Dutch study found that beer drinkers had 30 percent
higher levels of vitamin B6 than their non-drinking
counterparts, and levels that were twice as high as those of
wine drinkers. Beer is also a generous source of vitamin
B12, an anti-anemic factor not found in many foods.
- Beer for stronger bones! A 2009
study concluded that the elevated levels of silicon in beer
can contribute to higher bone density.
- Beer as a cure for insomnia
Lactoflavin and nicotinic acid, which are both present in
beer, can promote sleep!
- Beer reduces your risk of a
heart attack Beer drinkers have a 40 to 60 percent reduced
risk of suffering a heart attack compared with non-beer
drinkers.
- Beer helps prevent blood clots
The ingredients in beer help prevent blood clots from
forming.
- Beer boosts your memory
According to studies, beer drinkers are less likely to
suffer from Alzheimers disease and dementia than non-beer
drinkers.
- Beer helps combat stress
Researchers at the University of Montreal found that two
glasses of beer a day can reduce work-related stress or
anxiety.
- Beer as a cold remedy Drinking
warm beer is an excellent cold remedy! When barley is warmed
up it improves blood circulation and helps you breathe when
you feel congested. It also provides relief for joint pain
and boosts your immunity. So, how do you prepare it? Heat a
bottle of beer in a double boiler and then add four small
teaspoons of honey.
- Beer makes skin more beautiful
Good news for women! Certain vitamins in beer can regenerate
the skin and have a positive impact on pigmentation. Your
skin becomes smoother and suppler.
10 reasons beer is not bad for you:
Here are 10 reasons why beer is
not really bad for you, if had in moderation. Please note,
this is not an encouragement to imbibe, especially if you
are a teetotaler or have a medical condition
- Beer drinkers live longer
Moderate drinking is good for you, and beer is good for
moderate drinking. Everyone knows that if you drink too
much, it's not good for you. Let's not pull punches: If
you're a drunk, you run into things, you drive into things,
you get esophageal cancer, you get cirrhosis and other nasty
conditions. But more and more medical research indicates
that if you don't drink at all, that's not good for you
either. According to numerous independent studies, moderate
drinkers live longer and better than drunks or teetotalers.
Beer is perfect for moderate drinking because of its lower
alcohol content and larger volume compared with wine or
spirits. And as that old radical Thomas Jefferson said,
"Beer, if drank with moderation, softens the temper, cheers
the spirit, and promotes health." And he didn't need a
scientific study to tell him that.
- Beer is all-natural
Some know-it-alls will tell you that beer is loaded with
additives and preservatives. The truth is that beer is as
all-natural as orange juice or milk (maybe even more so -
some of those milk & OJ labels will surprise you). Beer
doesn't need preservatives because it has alcohol and hops,
both of which are natural preservatives. Beer is only
"processed" in the sense that bread is: It is cooked and
fermented, then filtered and packaged. The same can be said
for Heineken.
- Beer is low in calories,
low in carbohydrates and has no fat or cholesterol
For a completely natural beverage, beer offers serious
low-calorie options. Twelve ounces of Guinness has the same
number of calories as 12 ounces of skim milk: about 125.
That's less than orange juice (150 calories), which is about
the same as your standard, "full-calorie" beer. If beer were
your only source of nutrition, you'd have to drink one every
waking hour just to reach your recommended daily allowance
of calories (2,000 to 2,500). And nobody's recommending you
drink that many. The only natural drinks with fewer calories
than beer are plain tea, black coffee and water. Surely,
beer is loaded with those fattening carbohydrates, right?
Wrong again. The average beer has about 12 grams of carbs
per 12-ounce serving. The U.S. Recommended Daily Allowance
is 300 grams of carbohydrates in a standard 2,000-calorie
diet. In other words, you would need to drink an entire
24-pack case of beer - and then reach into a second case -
simply to reach the government's recommended daily allotment
of carbohydrates. You're better off munching an apple or
drinking some soda pop if you want to carbo-load. Each has
about 35 to 40 grams of carbs - three times the number found
in a beer. Also, beer has no fat or cholesterol.
- Beer improves your
cholesterol
Beer not only has no cholesterol, it can actually improve
the cholesterol in your body. In fact, drinking beer
regularly and moderately will tilt your HDL/LDL cholesterol
ratios the right way. You've got two kinds of cholesterol in
your system: HDL, the "good" cholesterol that armor-plates
your veins and keeps things flowing, and LDL, the "bad"
cholesterol that builds up in your veins like sludge in your
bathtub drain. Beer power-flushes the system and keeps the
HDL levels up. According to some studies, as little as one
beer a day can boost your HDL by up to 4 per cent.
- Beer helps you chill
The social aspects of moderate drinking are solidly
beneficial to your health. In other words, to get out
every now and then and relax with your buddies over a
couple of beers.
- Beer has plenty o' B
vitamins
Beer, especially unfiltered or lightly filtered beer,
turns out to be quite nutritious, despite the years of
suppression of those facts by various anti-alcohol
groups. Beer has high levels of B vitamins, particularly
folic acid, which is believed to help prevent heart
attacks. Beer also has soluble fiber, good for keeping
you regular, which in turn reduces the likelihood that
your system will absorb unhealthy junk like fat. Beer
also boasts significant levels of magnesium and
potassium, in case you were planning on metal-plating
your gut.
- Beer is safer than
water
If you're someplace where you are advised not to drink
the water, the local beer is always a safer bet. It's
even safer than the local bottled water. Beer is boiled
in the brewing process and is kept clean afterwards
right through the bottle being capped and sealed,
because if it isn't, it goes bad in obvious ways that
make it impossible to sell. Even if it does go bad,
though, there are no life-threatening bacteria bacteria
(pathogens) that can live in beer. So drink up - even
bad beer is safer than water.
- Beer prevents heart
attacks
If you want to get a bit more cutting-edge than
vitamins, beer has other goodies for you. You've heard
of the French Paradox, how the French eat their
beautiful high-fat diet and drink their beautiful
high-booze diet and smoke their nasty goat-hair
cigarettes, but have rates of heart disease that are
about one-third that of the rest of the world? It's been
credited to red wine and the antioxidants it contains.
Hey, guess what else has lots of antioxidants, as many
as red wine? Dark beer! According to the American Heart
Association, "there is no clear evidence that wine is
more beneficial than other forms of alcoholic drink."
One study profiled in the British Medical Journal in
1999 said that the moderate consumption of three drinks
a day could reduce the risk of coronary heart disease by
24.7 per cent.
- Beer fights cancer
The most amazing beer and health connection is
something called xanthohumol, a flavonoid found only
in hops. Xanthohumol is a potent antioxidant that
inhibits cancer-causing enzymes, "much more potent
than the major component in soy," according Dr.
Cristobal Miranda of the Department of Environmental
and Molecular Toxicology at Oregon State University.
This xanthohumol stuff is so good for you that the
Germans have actually brewed a beer with extra
levels of it.
- Beer does not give
you a beer belly
A study done by researchers at the University
College of London and the Institut Klinicke a
Experimentalni Mediciny in Prague in 2003 showed no
connection between the amount of beer people drank
and the size of their overhang. "There is a common
notion that beer drinkers are, on average, more
'obese' than either non-drinkers or drinkers of wine
or spirits," the researchers said. But they found
that "the association between beer and obesity, if
it exists, is probably weak." Most studies have
found that people who drink beer regularly (and
moderately) not only don't develop beer bellies -
they weigh less than non-drinkers. Beer can boost
your metabolism, keep your body from absorbing fat
and otherwise make you a healthier, less disgusting
slob. Just drink it in moderation, as part of an
otherwise healthy diet.