IS there any good things about drinking beer?!
IS there any good things about drinking beer?
i drink beer all the time, there has to be SOMETHING good about it besides having loads of fun.
Answers:
Research increasingly indicates health benefits of beer could surpass wine
Blame it on the French.
Current research into the health benefits of moderate alcohol consumption is a result of the "French paradox."
Although the French have a high-fat diet, smoke more than Americans and exercise even less, the rate of heart disease is approximately one-third the U.S. heart attack rate.
The French tendency to drink red wine with meals has been cited as the possible reason for the medical anomaly.
The grapes in red wine - and in grape juice - have high concentrations of flavonoids, which have been proven to reduce artery-narrowing blood platelet activity and introduce powerful free radical-fighting anti-oxidant protection into the bloodstream.
But a flurry of independent research since those initial reports on red wine's health benefits surfaced a dozen years ago finds that alcohol in general provides a number of health benefits when consumed in moderation, and that beer might be the healthiest beverage of them all. As brewer/patriot Thomas Jefferson said a couple hundred years ago, "Beer, if drank in moderation, softens the temper, cheers the spirit, and promotes health."
"The wine people have made a very impressive marketing ploy. I think it's a snow job," says Dr. Norman Kaplan, a hypertension specialist at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas. "Be that as it may, most people are convinced if you are going to get any benefit, it's going to be from red wine."
Kaplan says he has been on record for as long as 20 years touting the benefits of moderate alcohol consumption, and mounting evidence through independent research being conducted around the world is showing that moderate beer consumption - one or two beers a day - might be one of the best things you can do for your body and mind.
"It's sort of like taking an aspirin to prevent strokes and heart disease," he says. "There is a large body of evidence that small quantities of alcohol provide protection against coronary heart attack, but also there is evidence about stroke, heart failure and osteoporosis, and, most recently and most interestingly, dementia."
"Most everything says that two alcoholic drinks a day is sort of the therapeutic level, and anything above that ... not only doesn't it do any good as far as preventing disease, but it is detrimental because then it starts to cause problems with car accidents and other problems to your health," says Dr. Lowell Peterson, a cardiologist at the Appleton (Wis.) Heart Institute.
Peterson says he has been following the research on alcohol therapy for more than 10 years.
"Mostly since the French paradox thing came out," he says.
Peterson says the darker the drink, the better.
"Red wine is better than white wine, and dark beer is better than light beer," he says. "There are more flavonoids present."
Researchers at Oregon State University have published 10 papers on the biological activities of flavonoids unique to hops, the leafy buds used for bittering and spicing beers.
Dr. Cristobal Miranda, who has co-authored several of those papers, says they have used hops flavonoids to inhibit the growth of cancer cells in test tubes.
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Those studies could one day result in a natural hormone replacement therapy drug for post-menopausal women, without the side effects of currently available HRT drugs.
A European drug company is supposedly already testing hops on humans for that very purpose and will soon market a hops-powered HRT drug.
"In Germany, a beer has been out on the market known as High Xanthohumol Beer that is 10 times higher in xanthohumol," Cristobal says.
The New England Journal of Medicine has published research papers in recent years attributing health benefits to moderate alcohol consumption.
On Jan. 9, the journal carried a report on a 12-year study of 38,077 health professionals that concluded those in the group who drank moderately (at least four days a week) had about 20 percent less risk of heart attack.
Researchers found the risk of heart attack among healthy, middle-aged men who did not drink was 420 in 100,000, while the risk among moderate drinkers was 145 in 100,000.
The study concluded that adults should discuss alcohol consumption with their doctors.
An accompanying editorial by Dr. Ira Goldberg of the Division of Preventive Medicine and Nutrition at Columbia College reported that the study also found those who abstain from alcohol get the least physical activity, have a greater occurrence of diabetes and higher concentrations of trans- and saturated fats and have the lowest levels of vitamin E in their systems.
Goldberg suggested a study of alcohol therapy on patients already suffering heart disease in order to "advise patients with cardiovascular disease on the use of alcoholic beverages as medical therapy."
But, Kaplan says doctors generally are not talking to patients about alcohol because of all the negative societal connotations.
"I don't think many physicians are telling their patients, 'If you don't drink, you should start,' although, that, I think, is at least a question that should be raised because the benefits are there and I think a lot of people are not aware of those benefits," he says. "Many people are frightened because alcohol is a major drug of abuse and they don't want to expose themselves to that. I understand that."
"I think that it gets to be a personal decision with the doctors," Peterson says. "There are certain doctors who would never, ever recommend this. I think some people are so anti-alcohol that they would never recommend it."
But, he adds, if alcohol therapy helps to prolong life, then it should be considered.
"When you're dealing with a young person with heart disease, you try to pull out all the stops and give them every advantage," he says. "In my estimation, it should include not only the statins (drugs to treat high cholesterol), but also anti-oxidant vitamins, folic acid and red wine."
While Kaplan is a proponent of alcohol therapy, he advises that people should also eat right and exercise.
wait...................lemme think about it..........NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO THERE'S ABSOLUTELY NOTHING GOOD ABOUT DRINKING BEER! and you should not be drinking it alot.
Wine can be good for your heart, if that makes you feel better! But no, there is no positive for drinking beer except that it is fun. Think about it though--fun times mean great memories!
Bread in a can! Plenty of carbs!
YES. Your wife/girlfriend starts to look 3-4 times better. Unfortunately the same does not apply to your husband/boyfriend.
Hmmmm, I heard that the grain and hops that it is made out of are pretty O.K. for you ... :-) Happy drinking!
The good thing about beer is that you don't have to take time out of your drinking to eat.
Well, you could get a lighter sentence if you get drunk and killed someone
Hangover is not that bad??