Is beer healthy? Maybe not, but it has benefits.

A new scientific study has come to the literature that will finally make you abandon the sour kefir that you hate so much to start drinking your favorite beer every day, all with the aim of relieving your gastrointestinal problems and promoting health through improvement widespread of your gut microbiome.

Beer and gut health

Perhaps you are thinking that drinking a beer a day could be an aberration for the health of your body because it contains alcohol, but if it has been suggested as something healthy, drinking a glass of wine a day for cardiovascular health. Why couldn't this ferment be proposed as an effective remedy for gastrointestinal health?

Think of it like this. It is not like you are going to get drunk for this purpose and even if you wanted to, you would have to drink several of them to achieve that effect since, as you well know, most beers have an average alcohol percentage that goes between 5º and 12th, although of course there are strong beers such as Strength in Numbers that reaches up to 57.8 alcoholic volume made by the BrewDog and Schorschbräu factories or the acclaimed Scottish, Snake Venom that calls itself the most powerful beer in the world with a 67.5º ABV.

And if you go for the latter, obviously your minor conflict will be gastrointestinal issues when you compare them with all the harmful stuff that involves alcoholism on a physical, mental and emotional level.

What did this study find?

This fortunate study done in Portugal and published in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry states that drinking 12 ounces (about 330 ml) of beer with or without alcohol daily for 4 weeks can have an incredible effect and also a very positive one in terms of it is about diversifying the microorganisms that are part of your intestinal flora.

So, now, in addition to introducing food or drinks into your regular diet such as kombucha, kimchi, ginger, onion or garlic, among other pre and probiotic foods, you should add the sparkling beer of your choice to the list.

This study that recruited 22 healthy men by Cláudia Marques had them drink 330 ml of non-alcoholic (0.0%) and alcoholic (5.2%) beer during a 2-week follow-up period. Blood and fecal samples were collected before and after the experiment.

Impressively, it happened that after those 4 weeks there was no impact on the weight of the participants by increasing it, nor in terms of fat mass gain, which may well have been an expected hypothesis. Regarding the biochemical markers, the cardiometabolic ones studied were not affected either.

How could beer have had such an effect?

As is already well established in science, a better intestinal microbiome will always be one of the healthiest and this reduces the risk of diseases of all kinds, such as heart disease, diabetes or now, even speaking of COVID-19.

When it comes to the positive effect on gastrointestinal health, such as this study that shows that consuming a beer a day helps diversify the microbiome, we must remember that it is not only about having a lot of bacteria, but also the type of them, because in reality what is sought is that they are the most beneficial strains. In this specific investigation, the results were confirmed by an increase in the activity of alkaline phosphatase in the stool samples, which is considered a marker of intestinal barrier function.

The experts discussed that very possibly this point in favor of beer consumption on the body has to do with the fact that it also has phenolic compounds such as phenolic acid and flavonoids, which are actually antioxidant nutrients and could have promoted the growth of different bacteria.

Other ingredients that surely influenced were yeast and its components, so they propose that beers with a higher content of these, such as "lagers", can also have an effect on aspects of life and the abundance of the microflora.

And perhaps, one of the coolest things that you can learn in this regard from this report (if you don't like non-alcoholic beer), is that the benefits of beer went beyond the influence produced by the same alcohol that is formed. part of them. So it doesn't matter if you drink a daily drink with alcohol, without it, handmade, industrialized, or of any flavor, aroma or style.

[Via GQ Mexico]