Summer’s here and that means every excuse is good enough to finish work early and go grab a drink with friends. Whether you’re gathering in the park, on a terrace or at home really doesn’t matter. It’s all about having a good time and enjoying some fine food. Of course, our thirst has to be taken care of as well, and so we’re all getting those drinks out of the fridge. Some of us may choose a coke, others usually go for a glass of wine and others still go straight for a bottle of beer. And that may have some benefits.
If you’re living in Belgium, there’s a good chance that beer is part of your general culture. Of course, we all know that drinking too much alcohol isn’t exactly a good idea – neither for your liver nor for your motor skills –, but from time to time, there’s nothing better than a good old pint of beer. It’s a typical Belgian product and there’s not a single country in the world which has mastered the beer brewing skill as well as we heave; though of course, as a Belgian, I might be a tad biased.
With or without alcohol
But all sense of taste aside, according to a new study, there’s another reason why you should be drinking a beer every now and then. According to research by some scientists from the Universidade NOVA de Lisboa, beer would actually do much good for your intestinal health. Or that’s what they stated in an article published in the ACS Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, anyway. In order to come to that conclusion, the researchers studied 22 healthy men with an average age of 35 years during four weeks.
During that time, the men were asked to drink one beer daily. Some of them were given beer with an alcohol content of 5,2%, others got given non-alcoholic beers. Their intestinal health was monitored and after the experiment, the scientists came to a surprising conclusion. Their fecal alkaline phosphatase (ALP) function, a measure of intestinal barrier action, seemed to be enhanced and their gut microbiome variety did improve. Moreover, their Body Mass Index hadn’t been altered. Surprising to say the least.
As the results were the same with alcoholic and nonalcoholic beer, the researchers recommend drinking the nonalcoholic version because alcohol does present other risks to our health. The impact of beer on the intestinal health of women hasn’t been analysed so far.
