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Beer Found to be as Healthy as Wine
Matt Clare writes "Researchers at the University of Western Ontario (Canada) recently found that beer has the same positive qualities that wine has previously been found to have. The media release quotes professor John Trevithick, 'We were very surprised one drink of beer or stout contributed an equal amount of antioxidant benefit as wine, especially since red wine contains about 20 times the amount of polyphenols as beer.' For more info on how beer helps police harmful free radicals in blood, The London Free Press also has an article."
It may have as many antioxidants, but it also has a hell of a lot more carbs. If you REALLY want to get a lot of antioxidants, try blueberries instead. All the good stuff, little of the bad.
You have enemies? Good. That means you've stood up for something, sometime in your life. --Winston Churchill
Beer has a lot more to offer than just antioxidants, especially when you drink unfiltered homebrew/craft beers. For one, there's a ton of fiber (I've heard 5g/12oz quoted (too lazy to confirm)) which is good considering that most of us dont get near the recommended amount (~25g/day I think). Also, unfiltered beer contains a considerable amount of yeast (no, not just on the bottom, suspended too) which has tons of vitamin B12 (ever seen 'brewers yeast' at the health food store). I've heard also that lack of B12 is one of the main causes of hangovers - to this day, I've never had a (bad) hangover drinking my own beer.
"Moltar, I have a giant brain that is capable of reducing any complex machine into a simple yes or no answer."
Not that YOU personally would do this, but I have seen discussions arguing over "Beer X is better than Beer Y" where both sides clearly need to widen their beer horizons.
So let's get edjumucated. (and seriously, what could be more fun?) Here are two lists of (mostly) great beers that have very wide distribtuions--go out and find something on these lists that you haven't had, and try it tonight!
RateBeer's top 'accessible' beer list.
BeerAdvocate's 'Best Most Available Beers' list.
There are other lists, too, these are just to get you started. You can go to both site's "Top beers" to find a list of even better beers, although many of those could be hard to find.
No, read the article. The supposed mechanism is hormesis. This is the logic whereby you consume small amounts of toxins because there is a health benefit to consuming small amounts of toxins. Thoough it sounds crazy, it is not.
This is also the reason a little radiation or a little arsenic may be good for you.
I think it's more an issue of the amount needed to produce the desired effect. To get a decent buzz on, I need to drink three 12 oz cans or two 16 oz pints of the average 5% alcohol beer. This is 510 calories, the equivalent of eating a large order of French Fries. Light beer is 330 calories, the equivalent of a medium order of french fries. Now, to maintain said buzz, I would need to consume a minimum of 16 oz of beer per hour, which means three hours of drinking is the equivalent of a McDonalds extra-value meal.
On the other hand, I only need to drink 15 oz of wine to get the same buzz. Wine only has 106 calories per glass, so I'd be about as well off with wine as I would with light beer, though I'd probably enjoy it more as light beer doesn't hit the spot the way nice glass of Merlot would. Shit, drinking a whole bottle of wine is only 500 calories. So drink up, man...5 drinks for the caloric intake of 3, that's my idea of a party.
Hey freaks: now you're ju
Actually, there are several "good" studies--published in reputable journals, with good methodology and solid statistical methods--that show an association between moderate alcohol consumption and appreciably reduced risk of a number of diseases. (Here, moderate is a range from approximately 1 to 3 drinks per day, depending on the study.)
Reduced risks include cardiovascular diseases (heart attack, stroke) and neurological disorders (Alzheimers, other dementias, Parkinson's). There is a correlation with an overall reduced risk of mortality, even after controlling for income and education.
Consumption of alcohol to excess definitely does systemic damage to quite a bit of the body, but there is no evidence that moderate consumption is harmful. Sure, the benefits aren't huge, but for most people there's definitely no reason to describe alcohol as the 'most damaging' food product they can consume*. Only half in jest, I would recommend the Big Mac for that title, or maybe a Krispy Kreme doughnut. Alcohol would definitely be waaaay down the list. Quite right--most reputable physicians and researchers wouldn't recommend taking up drinking solely for health reasons, but no reputable scientist will tell you to drop drinking entirely, either.
*Exceptions include individuals who have a genetic inability to digest alcohol (defects in aldehyde dehydrogenase or another enzyme), or a predisposition towards alcoholism, or a liver or kidney disorder.
~Idarubicin
I think I speak for all the people who actually read the article, when I say: "According to the London Free Press article, the research was funded by Labatt and Guinness".
(Who hoo! I'm going to get +3 informative, just because I actually bothered to RTFA. Karma karma karma.)
I hate it when I make a joke and I get modded "+5 insightful". Mod the stupid comments "funny", not "insightful", pleas
Answer: from the article
I concurred. And then I jokingly asked if the study was sponsored by a brewery.
But that's no joke.
"The research was funded by Labatt and Guinness," said Trevithick, adding each brewery paid about $25,000 to finance the study. "But it's an unconditional grant and we made it very clear to them that if we had any findings we viewed as being appropriate to publish, that we'd publish them whether or not they were harmful to Labatt or Guinness."
Rhymes that keep their secrets will unfold behind the clouds.There upon the rainbow is the answer to a neverending story
You can already get a 5 liter box of 12% alcohol wine for 6 bucks.
Only an alcoholic would mod this informative.
RTFM:
Even though red wine contains more polyphenols than beer, this study showed the body absorbs about equally effective amounts of bioactive molecules such as polyphenols from beer and wine. Beer, wine, stout, and matured spirits (rum, whisky, sherry and port), which extract tannins from the oak casks they are matured or stored in, all contain significant amounts of polyphenols.
As if I needed another excuse to drink.
FreeSpeech.org
...only a healthy diet.
s /9 2_adar_0102.cfm
That goes for everything, be it beer, crisps, hamburgers, apples, lettuce, hell - even water [0]. Get it out of balance, and it's a problem.
Accordingly, some bad qualities != Unhealthy. For example, my natural [1] diet is too low in salt [2]. So, the odd bag of crisps is not a bad thing [3] for me. On the other hand, I know someone whose got high blood pressure - a single bad of can push him towards the danger area - it's a very bad thing for him. Most people, are in the middle.
With that in mind, what does this research actually mean, for the average person? Bugger all. The odd beer won't hurt, and hey, has some good points too. Too much is still bad.
May I reccomend, "Total diet approach to communicating food and nutrition information", J Am Diet Assoc 2002;102:100, available from
http://www.eatright.org/Public/GovernmentAffair
for some further reading.
And, if your looking for antioxidents, eat more raw fruit and veg. Particular foods may have more than others, but, frankly, if you are worried about antioxident intake, then either any will help, or your micromanaging your food intake excessivly. The human body is not a brittle thing - we've lasted this long by being able to live on a range of inputs, so just eat a broad range, and let the body do it's thing.
[0] Although, granted, drinking too much water is damn hard to do without some other contributry factor.
[1] By natural, I mean the diet I would eat if I didn't really think about it - just eat what I want, when I want.
[2] By too low, I mean averages 500mg of salt daily. Reccomended is 1-3g, recommended limit 6g.
[3] Better would be to have it more evenly distributed, prehaps.
The chemical compounds found in red wine are called resveratrol, polyphenols and anthrocyanidins. Resveratrol is described to be "a potent anti-oxidant (about 20-50 times as effectively as vitamin C alone) and act synergistically with vitamin C enhancing the effects of each. Resveratrol has been demonstrated to have an anti-clotting effect that prevents the formation of thrombi or blood clots in the blood vessels."
The article I found goes on to explain why alcohol can cause a hangover and why it is bad for the body: "When alcohol is consumed, the alcohol level in the blood increases and produces the intoxication effect. The body then begins "detoxifying" or metabolizing the alcohol. The first step is the conversion of alcohol to acetaldehyde by the enzyme alcohol dehydrogenase. This happens fairly quickly in individuals who regularly consume alcohol. The second step is the conversion of acetaldehyde into acetate by the enzyme aldehyde dehydrogenase. This process is a bit slower and leaves a quantity of acetaldehyde in the system for several hours or longer. It is the acetaldehyde that produces most of the undesirable toxic effects..."
"Acetaldehyde, produced primarily in the liver, but also in other organs to a lesser extent, readily binds to the walls of red blood cells and hitches a ride to all parts of the body including the brain. By attaching itself to the red blood cells, it makes them more rigid and prevents them from entering the smaller capillaries. (The smaller capillaries are much smaller than a red blood cell and the cell is forced to stretch, elongate and squeeze its way through.) This reduces the oxygen supply to most of the cells of the body including the brain. ( The Brain consumes 20% of all the oxygen we breathe). Acetaldehyde also combines with the hemoglobin in the red blood cells further reducing its ability to carry oxygen."
"In addition to inducing hypoxia (oxygen starvation at the cellular level), Acetaldehyde reduces the ability of the protein tubulin to assemble into microtubules. Microtubules provide a structural support for the neurons and dendrites in the brain and actually transport neurochemicals manufactured in the nerve cells to the dendrites, including genetic material. Without the microtubules, the dendrites gradually atrophy and die off..."
And the list goes on and on, so it's not the alcohol that is beneficial, but the anti-oxidant resveratrol found in red wine.
In Ireland, Guinness has long thought to be medicinal. In fact, it was suposedly administered to nursing mothers, blood donors, stomach and intestinal post-operative patients and mothers recovering from childbirth because of this.
No wonder Guinness used the slogan "Guinness is good for you" for many years in their advertising.
However, I do think it's a bit cruel that just down wind of St James' Gate (the Guinness Brewery in Dublin) is an old Hospital where they used to treat alcoholics. You would often get a good wiff of Guinness around that area of Dublin, this must have been torture!
Anyway, I will always love a great pint of Guinness, the fact that it's good for me is just a positive side effect.