Beer used to be brewed when potable water was not available. The beverage is now the most popular alcoholic drink in the world. We often crack open a can or take off a bottle top to refresh ourselves with something a little more poky during the summer. In recent years though, alcoholism and excessive drinking have been a bane of health and sociability let alone adding to the waistline. Roughly 4% of all deaths can be attributed to alcoholism every year.
Beer contains a variety of useful biologically active compounds. It is a drink of fermented cereal from yeast with added sugar and all these ingredients contribute something useful.
Recent research from Brazil has shown that moderate consumption of alcoholic beer versus non-alcoholic beer has some health benefits. Apparently, alcoholic beer alters certain specific biochemical markers of blood in a positive manner. The study was a controlled cross-over examination with fifteen healthy adult men who were aged between 20 and 57 years. Two beers were brewed to a similar specification with controlled fermentation from the same ingredients. The alcoholic variant however had 6% grain alcohol added.
Each subject underwent three treatments for 30 days on each one. The baseline (treatment 1), meant they followed their usual diet without drinking any alcoholic beverage. For treatment 2, they added the daily consumption of 330 mL non-alcoholic beer. Treatment 3 was the same as in 2 but with the alcoholic beer rather than the non-alcoholic version. Incidentally, the subjects were healthy to begin with and remained so after the study.
The study found that drinking alcoholic beer for 30 days (av. 16 g alcohol/day) reduced blood insulin and fasting glucose levels, which implied a reduction resistance to insulin. The study also showed that the lipid profile was positively affected. The results indicated that relatively moderate consumption could lower “bad” cholesterol and increase “good” cholesterol, and also help control blood glucose levels. It suggests that daily consumption of 330 mL of alcoholic beer can improve the lipid profile and insulin sensitivity of adult men. It needs to borne in mind that the study was relatively small-scale but appears controlled well.
The messages from such studies is often confusing for those who are attempting to give up alcohol. On the one hand red wine for example is claimed to be good for you and in moderation can help reduce the risk of diabetes. In other studies, alcoholic drinks are linked to improved heart health (Arranz et al., 2012) which is due in part to the phytochemicals in the beverage. In beer’s case, it will be malt and hop components.
Alcohol is considered as one of the main bioactive components of beer and wine for that matter because of its solubilising activity and calorific value. It is associated with reduced coronary heart disease, due to its ability to increase the levels of ‘good’ cholesterol or high-density lipoprotein (HDL). Over 60 prospective studies suggest an inverse relationship between moderate alcoholic drink consumption and cardiovascular disease with approximately half of these beneficial effects being attributed to an increase in HDL (Rimm et al., 1996), depending on the amount of alcohol consumed (McConnell et al., 1997).
At the moment, there are many other pieces of research associated with alcohol consumption which should be commented on in relation to diabetes and heart health. The intention is to examine these in the fullness of time and report here.
Nogueira, L. C., do Rio, R. F., Lollo, P. C. B. and Ferreira, I. M.P.L.V.O. (2017), Moderate Alcoholic Beer Consumption: The Effects on the Lipid Profile and Insulin Sensitivity of Adult Men. Journal of Food Science, 82 pp. 1720–1725. doi:10.1111/1750-3841.13746
Other References
Arranz, S., Chiva-Blanch, G., Valderas-Martínez, P., Medina-Remón, A., Lamuela-Raventós, R.M., Estruch, R. (2012) Wine, beer, alcohol, and polyphenols on cardiovascular disease and cancer. Nutrients 4 pp. 759–81
McConnell, M.V., Vavouranakis, I., Wu, L.L., Vaughan, D.E., Ridker, P.M. (1997) Effects of a single, daily alcoholic beverage on lipid and hemostatic markers of cardiovascular risk. Am. J. Cardiol. 80 pp. 1226–28.
Rimm, E.B., Klatsky, A., Grobbee, D., Stampfer, M.J. (1996) Review of moderate alcohol consumption and reduced risk of coronary heart disease: is the effect due to beer, wine, or spirits. British Medical J. 312 pp. 731–36.
Rossi, T., Gallo, C., Bassani, B., et al. (2014) Drink your prevention: beverages with cancer preventive phytochemicals. Pol. Arch. Med. Wewn. 124 pp. 713–22.
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