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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."
GNU/BEER
... when I say
"WOOHOO!!"
You can't expect to wield supreme executive power, just because some watery tart threw a sword at you
"it's not just for breakfast anymore"
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
And yet, you never hear about a "wine belly."
"I make people like me... WITH VIOLENCE!" - ATHF
To quote from article, ...
But the key is moderation. The researchers found three beers would have the opposite effect.
The study was funded by beermakers Guinness and Labatt. But the university says the financial support had no influence on the outcome.
After the Great Britain Beer Festival, in London, all the brewery presidents decided to go out for a beer.
The guy from Corona sits down and says, "Hey Senor, I would like the world's best beer, a Corona." The bartender dusts off a bottle from the shelf and gives it to him.
The guy from Budweiser says, "I'd like the best beer in the world, give me 'The King Of Beers', a Budweiser." The bartender gives him one.
The guy from Coors says, "I'd like the only beer made with Rocky Mountain spring water, give me a Coors." He gets it.
The guy from Guinness sits down and says, "Give me a Coke." The bartender is a little taken aback, but gives him what he ordered.
The other brewery presidents look over at him and ask "Why aren't you drinking a Guinness?" and the Guinness president replies, "Well, I figured if you guys aren't drinking beer, neither would I."
You probably shouldn't click this.
Smashing your head into a wall while taking steroids is as healthy as professional football!
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"how beer helps police..."
We can now rest assured that Homer Simpson will be cancer-free.
free? as in radicals policed by beer?
There are no karma whores, only moderation johns
Pfft. Mostt of uzsd hav knonnnw bou)t this fofr yeawrs!!@
"All art is quite useless." -- Oscar Wilde
Happy hour here I come!
Seriously though, I've always wanted to start drinking a glass of wine or beer with lunch at work. Think about it long term; it would be a health benefit. One beer isn't going to make anyone loopy, and you'd be at your desk or in the kitchen, so you wouldn't be going outside like smokers, plus you'd only do it once a day unlike smokers.
Hmmm...perhaps I should send this article to our HR department...
CB!@#$%^&*
free ipod and free gmail!
1 drink of wine = 1 glass 1 drink of beer = 1 pony keg. I personally prefer the weight of the glass, but some may prefer the durability of the keg. But really a pint of beer vs. a glass of wine is hardly comparable at least from a calorie standpoint.
I think the reason wine drinkers are healthier than beer drinkers remains consistent. Wine has fewer calories, so you don't get as fat. As a general rule, wine drinkers have healthier weights than beer drinkers.
When I see these studies, I also pause and wonder whether these scientist are trying to rationalize their beer/wine intake. If their wives or husbands get after them for wanting their "one" drink-a-day, they can point to their studies and say that science proves that this is good for me!
Of course, drinking is moderation is good, too much of anything may be harmful. At least that has been my experience. All this article does in reinforce little but of knowledge.
Jonathan
'We were very surprised one drink of beer or stout contributed an equal amount of antioxidant benefit as wine"
Further, after about 4 or 5 more beers, who cares!
You can have my cynical agnosticism when you pry it from my cold, dead logic.
Do you trust Labatts with this "science"?
With beer being healthy for you, and recent studies showed that mice who became under the influence of pot had less cancer growth...I'm glad to say I live a healthy life style.
-------
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Red Grape Juice. I lack propper sources, but apparently red grape juice is just as good with the free radicals as wine was found to be.
That's because Red Grape Juice, when it's 100% juice, is just red wine that's been pasteurized to kill the yeast and boil off the alcohol.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
I guess that means I'll live to be 100!!! Excuse me while I crack open another cold one!! WooHoo!
Anyway, the point is when he was recovering, the doctor asked him about his life-style. My grandfather, a wine-drinker, answered a solid "NO" when asked if he drank beer. The doctor recommended that he change that and start drinking a beer per day.
The doctor was under belief a beer per day would keep the prostate cancer from returning, and it (among other things) seems to have worked. My grandfather celebrated his 80th a few years ago and is still going strong.
"Empathise with stupidity, and you're halfway to thinking like an idiot." - Iain M. Banks
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
And like God, beer can be healthy if you don't over do it.
For more info on how beer helps police harmful free radicals in blood...
It's time to write your representatives, folks!
As Benjamin Franklin said, "Beer is proof that there is a God and that He loves us."
I couldn't agree more.
--Slashdot: News for Turds. Stuff that Splatters.
"To alcohol! The cause of -- and solution to -- all of life's problems."
To-do List: Receive telemarketing call during a tornado warning. Check.
the definition of a real beer isn't always about its alcohol content.
now go out and get some chimay.
Moo.
Do we really want beer helping the police to free harmful radicals?
"I'm not impatient. I just hate waiting." - My Dad
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."
Because it doesn't taste and look like urine? [Yes I know what urine tastes like, so sue me: a bit like Budweiser, only less fucking ricey.]
Officer: Sir, I can sense a strong odor of alcohol from you. Are you drunk?
Me: No ossifer, I'm just antioxidizing and dieting, fanks.
vodka, straight up, thank you!
So if I've already spent four years averaging six beers/day, I need to stay sober for the next twenty years to benefit?
Man, am I glad I didn't go for that post-graduate degree!
It's also been linked to gout, stick to the wine.
Actually, the whole title of beer or wine being "healthy" is rediculous. Alcohol is the most damaging food product you can put in your body. It's far worse than trans-fatty acids, artificial ingredients (e.g., pesticides, food coloring), or sugar. I defy you to find any reputable medical researcher who would encourage people to take up drinking for health benefits. You want the health benefits of wine or beer? Eat some grapes instead. You'll get the benefits of the flavonoids without the damaging effects of the alcohol.
Look, I have nothing against alcohol. I love wine and I'm fortunate to live in an area known for exceptional wine growing. But let's not kid ourselves about alcohol being some kind of health food. So put away your low-carb beer and your red wine and drink what you want -- in moderation.
GMD
watch this
score one for us drunks!
Just the other day I heard a cardiologist arguing that, at least in terms of positive cardiac health, the level where wine becomes more harmful than good was at least two-thirds of a bottle. That's my kind of moderation!!
This article should be taken with a grain of salt. First of all, it's about as minor a medical discovery as you could find, in terms of potential impact of the study, where it was published, etc. (makes me wonder if the submitter was an author). There was a massive article on a similar topic in the New England Journal of Medicine last year, which actually studied actual humans and their actual outcomes (link here) that didn't make it onto slashdot, and proved essentially the same thing. This is just talking about a lab proof about antioxidants, which are currently only one theory as to why alcohol is good for you. In other words, this is nice to know, but doesn't prove anything we didn't already know.
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.
The study showed that there is a nonlinear curve relating the amount of beer consumed and overall health. So there must be some factor other than the antioxidant effect at work.
.5 q ^ 2
I'm not a physiologist, or even very smart, so the rest of this is pure guesswork:
Probably small amounts of alcohol don't do bad things to you, and may even clean crud from the blood and arteries. Larger amounts make the kidneys work harder, and the excess is eventually converted to fat.
Since most people (in the population that eats enough to read Slashdot) have enough fat already, these negative health effects of alcohol take over with increased consumption.
The formula for health may be formed like:
health = q +
where q is the daily consumption.
It's obviously more complex than that, but as I said, I'm not a medic. The point to my guess is that the effect is not linear, but it's also not exponentially bad for you to drink more. 10 beers/day is not much worse for you than, say, 5. The curve levels off.
sigs, as if you care.
Hey, are you that Alaskan who stuck his tongue to a frozen flagpole?
Well, yes, it is about the water. Water is amazingly important to different beer styles--it's why you get pale ale in London and brown in Newcastle. Mineral content difference. And no, darker doesn't necessarily mean better, and lighter colored is not equal to watered down. There's more grain in our amber ale than our porter, for example.
Yes, I brew for a living.
It is doubtful that the antioxidants contained in beer and wine are what's giving them their life preserving properties. Oddly enough, it's more probable that there's a beneficial effect from ethanol's toxic metabolite: acetaldehyde.
Acetaldehyde does a nice job preventing non-enzymatic protein cross-linking. Read for yourself: http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/full/96/5/2385
This weekend is Oktoberfest! Oregon's best is in Mt Angel! If you want a really good sausage, come by the Silverton KofC booth on Saturday morning- we put beer in our kraut on my father's shift (as well as boiling the sausage in beer, yum!).
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
Beer still has to battle against the more extreme low-carb advocates out there. One book, the popular South Beach Diet, goes to such an effort to discredit beer that it fallaciously compares consuming beer to consuming 100% pure maltose, simply because beer contains some maltose. The claims in the book made me think the author has some sort of agenda against beer or alcohol that go far beyond low-carb eating.
-- "Makes Little Debbie look like a pile of puke!" - Moe Szyslak
I think jumping to any conclusions is a little premature at this point. While I've only been picking up tidbits of information in this area, I was under the impression that we're only just now getting to the point of understanding the actual mechanism of action behind the health benefits provided by red wine. This article seemed to imply that the study is working under the assumption that all or most of the benefit is being provided by it acting as an antioxident. While I'm certainly not going to dismiss any benefit from antioxidents, I do think they get a little more positive press than deserved based on most studies.
Everything will be taken away from you.
Being a professional brewer this is not new news many studies are done every year if beer or wine are bad or good for you depends on the research project and who is funding it at the time .
Researchers at the University of Western Ontario (i.e piss-head students)
;) .. Even so I wish I'd had an idea like this for my final year!
I imagine the research was a real bind
Im thinking of doing some research into proving that an end of night curry or chilli kebab helps prevent a killer hangover. Anyone care to sponsor me ?
Nick...
Electronic Music Made Using Linux http://soundcloud.com/polyp
In the process of trying to lose weight, I've done a lot of reading lately on why low-carb diets work, and most of thee details seem pretty logical and convincing to me. Here in a nutshell, is why I think high-carb beers cannot be healthier than (usually) low-carb wines for people trying to lose weight:
High carb and sugar diets cause the release of Insulin in the body, which is a signal to the body that more than adequate nutrition is available as a result of which, the survival mechanism kicks in and stores any fat consumed thereafter as body fat, with the carbs being used for energy. When carb consumption is lowered, however, Insulin is absent from the bloodstream, and fat is burnt instead for energy.
Hence, from this standpoint, the food pyramid (which suggests low fat instead of low carbs) as well as high carb beers are unhealthier, since they encourage storage of more fat in the body, leading to obesity.
In any case, I'm not a biologist, and I've found this way of eating quite health and effective. Thought I'd chip in with my $0.02.
For those interested in more details, look up Slashdot's earlier coverage of the subject:Hackera on Atkins".
An Indian-American Hindu committed to non-violent thought/speech/action alarmed by the global explosion of radical Islam
Time for someone to start some research of the great benefits of Tequila!!!
When red wine was declared (in moderation) to be healthy, the price went up. A bottle of merlot that used to cost 5 dollars a bottle (when it wasn't good for you) now costs 8 dollars. When it was widely publicized that Oats helped lower cholesterol, the price of everything containing oats went up. Check the cereal isle. Now beer is healthy!!? ARRRRGHHHH!!!
Honestly judge, I wasn't drunk, I was taking a nutritional supplement.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
how beer helps police harmful free radicals in blood, The London Free Press also has an article."
beer, Police, free radicals, blood, London Free Press?
All the standard ingredients for another protest day in London.
Vintage computer adverts: http://www.vintageadbrowser.com/computers-and-software-ads
Since alcohol isn't the cause of most of these effects, wouldn't this reccomend non-alcoholic beers and wines?
Ideally, you'd use yeast to make a vitamin drink, removing excess sugars/calories. You'd remove the alcohol. Then you'd drink.
___
It's the end of my comment as I know it and I feel fine.
Beer, in this great land of Canada eh, is kinda expensive (over a buck a bottle). I'd hate to have to treat my beer as a regular expense (1 bottle a day per month equals $30+ each month).
So is there a cheaper alternative to getting this health benefit?
Also, say you do drink occasionally (say once a month having 6-9drinks) does that negate the benefits of this?
Free Beer! That's beer that's free as pretzels and open as speech. I'm talking about the Free and Open Source QBrew Homebrew Recipe Calculator.
[Hey, it's shameless self-promotion, but beer related stories don't appear on Slashdot that often]
You don't even need to know how to brew, because it comes with a brewing primer. To be honest, while the software is free as in pretzels, brewing ingredients might set you back twenty bucks for a two case batch, but that twenty buck is worth it. Now go and make some "Beer Found to be as Healthy as Wine".
[Now I'm starting to feel ashamed about this shameless self-promotion, better wrap up quick]
It's even free for Windows and Mac (but is much cooler under a Free and Open system like Linux or BSD). A new release is due within the month, but why wait? Build now and avoid the rush...
Don't blame me, I didn't vote for either of them!
Also good for chili is Black Butte Porter, from Deschutes Brewing. It might be tough to get ahold of outside of Oregon, though- I'm not sure what their distribution is like.
Darl McBride SCO (Scamers, Crooks and Opportunists)
Yahh, hiii haaaaa! -Major Kong, from Dr. Strangelove
White wines generally has fewer calories than red wines, but also has less antioxidant content than reds as well. The exception to the calorie count will be dessert wines, which have so much sugar in them it's pointless compare them to reds anyway. Also, not to put a damper toward white wine drinkers, but almost all 'light' whites are on the bottom of the list. These include Sauvignon Blanc and Rieslings (from almost any region, but veering towards colder regions like Alsace and Germany). Of the whites, the only wines that seem to rank well in antioxidant count(among other whites - none rank well against reds) are alcoholic, tannic chardonnays(from wood barrels) from very sunny regions, like Chile and Australia. I guess the sugar content helps there in the fermentation process.
Red wines with more tannins were generally ranked higher on the antioxidant list. I haven't really checked whether the tannin count is from the barrels they aged in, or the grape skin itself, but the highest ranking 'healthy' red wines listed were from chile and some parts of australia. But there were plenty from france and California as well.
Of the reds, small sized grape varietals seems to have more 'good stuff' in them; Most of the wines up on the list were Cabernet Sauvignon, some Cabernet Franc, and the occasional Shiraz/Syrah. Absent from the list (or I just don't remember seeing any) was primitivo/zinfandel, along with pinot noir. Most of the merlots were on the bottom of the list.
In terms of alcohol content, the 'healthiest' wines had the highest amount of alcohol in them, generally all above 14-15 percent. I'm guessing this is due to the length of time the wines are allowed to stay in the barrels(forgive my lack of winespeak, it's been a while). Also, very very few steel barrel wines ranked high in terms of antioxidant content and 'other stuff.'
I guess that's about it atm. If you want to drink healthy, make sure to aim for heavy, tannic wines made from the small grape varietals that have been aged in wood, which happens to have lots of calories, and lots of alcohol(disclaimer:there is no scientific basis on anything I've just said, this is all based off of my experience). :-) I haven't RTFA as of yet, but I'm curious of the types of beer high up on the list of 'goodness' reflect the wine criteria for 'goodness.' In particular the 'aged, high calorie, alcoholic' portion of it.
One thing about heavy tannic wines: in my experience I've gotten the worst hangovers from them. I'm guessing it's from the tannins themselves, as light reds and whites don't affect me nearly as much.
and not to be a downer on your post, but if I was looking to get a quick hit, my suggestion would be to aim straight for the vodka (not that I'm advocating that or anything). Vodka has some of the highest alcohol/dollar ratio making it super cheap, plus (if you buy good vodka) is has very little impurities so you don't have to worry too much about hangovers. And, it's pretty low on the calorie count compared to wine and beer. The problem with vodka is that because it's so clean, people have a hard time judging whether or not they have had enough.
I used to drink wine very heavily, so I've built quite a tolerance to alchohol. I don't drink as often as I used to, but every once in a while I enjoy having a beer or a glass of wine, and I notice that I get a nice little buzz, even with my heavy tolerance. Man, work must be more stressful than I thought. :-P
This is great news! I am immediately going to go out and drink as much beer as possible before they change their minds and decide beer is bad for you again.
Time makes more converts than reason
Interestingly, the researchers have found that only Canadian beer has this healthy benefit.
*wink
in girum imus nocte et consumimur igni
...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 Atkins diet, as descibed by the various books and articles from Atkins, is not that bad, in principle. Let me distil down the logic behind it:
1) People eat too much.
2) Eating less just makes you hungry. Ergo, it's difficult.
3) If you look at the rates of ``fullness'' to calories, carbohydrates are way down the list.
4) Thus, if you skip the carbs for a while, it lets the body get used to lower total volume of food, without feeling hungry.
5) After the body is used to lower volumes of food, replace the highly energy dense foods with low energy density foods.
6) Loose weight.
Thus, the whole diet is just a hack, to get people to eat less without going through the tough phase of being hungry at the start.
Note that step 4 is to ``skip'' the carbs. That is, eat the steak, and the veg, skip the fries. Not, eat a bigger steak in place of the fries. That defeats the point.
When viewed in this manner, the Atkins approach has some merit.
Of course, as we all know, when you take a hack, and run with it for a long period, it creates it's own problems. Hack's work for a short period, to get a job done, and then should get refactored into something more wholistic.
What really gets my hackles up is when people order a meal, skip the starchy part, but order a double 'non starchy' part. Way to miss the point!
The brain cells in the 10% of the brain we use, or the rest of them?
People say I'm crazy, I got diamonds on the soles of my shoes...
That's all I have to say, thanks for coming!
I find your ideas intriguing and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter.
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.