Researchers Who drinks beer, lives a hundred years

Researchers are studying healthy ingredients in beer

That an excess of alcoholic beverages harms the body is undisputed. But who indulges in a beer from time to time, does his health because of certain ingredients apparently something good. Especially if it is a non-alcoholic.

High alcohol consumption makes you sick

Beer is high on the list of favorite German drinks. Too much should not be drunk. After all, a high consumption not only promotes the development of a beer belly, but can in principle damage any organ of the human body due to the contained alcohol. However, there is also evidence that the popular barley juice may be beneficial to health. Researchers are now dealing more closely with beer ingredients.

Various scientific research has shown that certain ingredients in beer can be good for your health. However, the barley juice is not medicine. (Image: mhp / fotolia.com)

Beer ingredients for obesity?

Ingredients of beer as an anti-inflammatory and obesity agent?

Scientist around Prof. Dr. med. Claus Hellerbrand from the Institute of Biochemistry of the Friedrich-Alexander-University Erlangen-Nürnberg (FAU) investigate beer ingredients in terms of their anti-inflammatory effects.

According to a statement from the university, they received the Research Prize of the European Foundation for Alcohol Research and the European Brewery Convention for more than 60,000 euros.

Positive effect on health

An Italian proverb reads: "He who drinks beer lives a hundred years". It may be more truth than expected.

Beer contains, among others, the substances xanthohumol and iso-alpha acids. According to studies by the research group of Prof. Hellerbrand, xanthohumol inhibits fatty liver disease caused by obesity and malnutrition and prevents the liver from scarring.

In addition, it kills liver cancer cells and prevents overweight, the weight gain.

The iso-alpha acids also have a positive effect on health. They inhibit liver damage and have a positive influence on the fat and sugar metabolism.

Production of inflammatory factors is slowed down

In addition, the scientists found new research work together with the group of Prof. Dr. med. Ina Bergheim, University of Vienna, found out that the two substances favorably influence biological processes, especially in combination.

Together, they inhibit, for example, inflammatory processes even more effectively. Even very low concentrations significantly slow down the production of inflammatory factors in liver and blood cells.

Whether even further disease mechanisms such as diabetes or cancer can be combated more effectively by the combination of the two substances, will be examined in the now funded research project.

Furthermore, the mechanisms underlying this good combinatorial effect are to be decrypted.

Hops - Yellow Gold

As stated in the communication, xanthohumol is one of the plant polyphenols - the aromatic compounds that provide color and flavor to the plants.

The substance is found exclusively in the hops and responsible for the yellow hue of the hop flowers. Hops play an important role in the brewing of beer, however, in which xanthohumol is degraded in large parts.

In the beer itself, however, only a small proportion of the substance is present. Another ingredient of the hops are the bitter acids, which cause the typical beer taste.

One group of them are the alpha-acids, which are converted into iso-alpha-acids by heating during the brewing process.

Hop foods and drinks

According to the information available, the only way in which xanthohumol and iso-alpha-acids are absorbed by humans is via the consumption of beer, albeit at a relatively low concentration.

However, beer is not medicine. The reason: the alcohol content.

"However, it is conceivable that the consumption of non-alcoholic beer or other hops-containing foods and drinks such as hops lemonade or hops tea can have a positive effect," explains Hellerbrand.

"Especially for the treatment or prevention of liver damage from obesity, xanthohumol and iso-alpha acids seem very promising," says the researcher. (Ad)