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Is Beer Healthy?

Good news for all of you beer drinkers – it has been proven that beer can give you the same benefits, health wise, that wine does. Yep, no matter which ale you prefer studies have shown that in moderation (up to 2 a day) will reduce your chances of heart disease and strokes.

Originally considered the French Paradox, the correlation between the French’s low heart disease rate and the daily intake of red wine, it has now been shown to also exist in beer. Beer is made from water, yeast and grains (wheat and barley) which have a variety of vitamins that actually survive through the filtering and fermentation processes. The value of the vitamins contained in the yeast stays in all of the unfiltered beers, both in bottles and on tap, that are available today.

Actually back in 1999 The New England Journal of Medicine did claim that moderate amounts of beer would decrease the chance of having a stroke by about 20%. But they also said that it produces no significant different whether you drink one beer a week or one a day, so you can’t use that excuse to have a few every day.

Not that you need any, but if a few other reasons to drink beer include the fact that it has been shown that in moderation it may lower your chance of coronary heart problems by as much as 40% when compared to someone who does not drink it at all; something to do with the great antioxidants found in it. Also, alcohol has been found to increase the good cholesterol amounts in the bloodstream which decreases blood clots.

It also contains good ole vitamin B6 which helps to prevent the build up of an amino acid called homocysteine which has been linked with heart disease. Those with higher levels of this amino acid are much more likely to develop early onset of vascular and heart disease. The amount of vitamin B6 in the blood plasma is increased by as much as 30% when you consume beer, something that liquor and wine can’t do.

And one last reason, if one is needed, to drink beer is that it is both cholesterol and fat free.