Beer may be good for you!

[helenas]

The link is here

[Varmint]

Beer -- It's not just for breakfast anymore.

[Rail Paul]

Beer -- It's not just for breakfast anymore.

But it was, many years ago.

Under the rescinded rules of the Catholic church, observant members were expected to fast from solid foods after midnight to the time of communion, often after sunrise. The fast from liquids was just three hours prior to the Eucharist.

Many monastic orders arose at 3 am (tierce) for prayer, followed by work. A brewed, liquid beverage with the strength of wheat and hops provided strength, without violating the fast from solid foods.

Unlike contemporary college students and others, the monastic morning dining experience did not include cold pizza...

[Fat Guy]

Eventually, we're going to become desensitized to sensationalist announcements about what is and isn't good for us to eat. What's next? Bacon, I hope.

[Stone]

"May be?" Beer is good for you.

[jhlurie]

The arguments:

a look at 70,000 female nurses showed that those who drank moderate amounts of beer had less hypertension than did nurses who drank either wine or spirits. He also points to a survey of 128,934 adults in the Kaiser Permanente managed-care system. It showed that male beer drinkers among the group were at a statistically significant lower risk of coronary-artery disease than were men who drank red wine, white wine or spirits

Beer, in moderate amounts, helps hypertension - Duh! It's a relaxant, isn't it?

No seriously... note the idiotic wording "compared to those who drank either wine or spirits". Where's the comparison to NON-alcohol drinkers, asswipes?

Dr. Kaplan says new evidence also suggests that beer, because of mechanisms that “are not all clearly understood,” may help increase bone density

Well, Dr. Lurie suggests that, for reasons "not clearly understood" that Arby's Roast Beef sandwiches do the same thing. Okay?

it also could raise by 10% to 20% the so-called “good cholesterol” levels in some people, thereby helping to ward off coronary-heart disease and related afflictions such as dementia

"Some people" is probably the statistical minimum to satisfy that kind of statement. Different foods are broken down differently by different people. None of this is understood that well.

Beer, he adds, is also rich in B-vitamins and folates

Goody goody. So are a lot of things. A beer has like... a percent or two of the RDA of those things. Don't stop taking your multi-vitamin or eating your spinach.

For those reasons, Dr. Kaplan says, “beer drinking has equal or perhaps more benefit” than wine or spirits.

Again, no real comparison to non-drinkers. Isn't that the whole point here? To get a P.R. leg up on the Wine industry more than actually prove any real health benefits?

Excuse me while I go get a beer. I don't need some pea-brain paid-off scientist to give me lame excuses to drink it.

[tighe]

It's a nice thought and there certainly is no evidence that moderate alcohol consumption is bad for you, but....

In addition to the above criticisms (which I second), these studies never mention the fact that they typically cannot control for all the other diet/lifestyle factors, not to mention genetic predisposition, that contribute to health. It could easily be that beer consumption is simply closely correlated with some other factor that contributes to good health. As in, the number of hours spent watching TV is highly correlated with your chances of being overweight, but do you really want to argue that watching TV causes people to be overweight?

[stellabella]

having spent five weeks in London and Ireland this summer, drinking many, many pints of real ale, I have to say that i believe there are some health benefits, and I believe that the benefits are in the ACTIVE YEAST in real ale, versus a bottled pasteurized beverage. drinking a couple pints a day i felt energetic, i slept well, my skin was rosy & smooth. etc. this is true.

i can't prove it's good for you but want to hear what others say.

[rstarobi]

From what I remember reading in Charlie Papazian's New Complete Joy of Homebrewing, brewer's yeast is very high in b-complex vitamins (B6, B12, Riboflavin) - which is corroborated by the B-complex vitamin that my local grocery store sells, which lists brewer's yeast as an ingredient. So maybe unpasteurized, unfiltered beer is good for you.

[Gavin Jones]

drinking a couple pints a day

A couple, Stellabella?

[Big Man]

Oatmeal stout is also reputed to have gobs of vitamins.

But to be honest, I'd drink the stuff even if it weren't good for me.

[mickblueeyes]

Actually beer really is good for you.

"Approximately four out of five kidney-stone sufferers are men. Good thing we like beer. According to a study published in the American Journal of Epidemiology, Finnish researchers evaluated the eating habits of about 27,000 men and found that drinking one beer a day was associated with a 40 percent lower risk of developing kidney stones. One explanation: The hops in beer help to keep calcium from leaching out of bones and taking up residence in your kidneys. Or maybe it's all those bathroom visits. Either way, we're not going to argue with 27,000 Nordic beer drinkers."--men's health