News | April 9, 1999

Health Benefit Found in Beer

In a recently released Literary Review entitled "Nutritional and Health Benefits of Beer," a leading researcher at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas reported that men and women who consume moderate amounts of beer (one to two drinks per day) have a 30% to 40% lower rate of coronary heart disease compared with men and women who don't drink.

The positive health effects of light to moderate consumption of beer match that of previously released studies regarding red wine and provides more benefits than white wine. The report states that "per drink, beer contains a similar amount of polyphenols (antioxidants) as red wine and four to five times as many polyphenols as white wine."

The study included research from over 124 different expert sources and papers that had been previously published internationally.

Margo Denke, M.D., associate professor of Internal Medicine at UT Southwestern, presented the results of the study at the medical school's Internal Medicine Grand Rounds in Dallas on March 25. Scott Grundy, M.D. Ph.D., Professor of Internal Medicine, UT Southwestern, coordinated the research project. Grundy is one of the country's leading experts in nutrition and is the director of the Center for Human Nutrition as well as the chairman of the Nutrition Committee of the American Heart Association.

According to the summary of the clinical research, The biologic mechanisms linking moderate beer intake to reduced rates of cardiovascular disease may include:

  • Increases in HDL cholesterol levels. Some analyses suggest that the increase in HDL cholesterol level explains 30% to 50% of the benefit from moderate alcohol consumption.
  • Improvements in clotting time. Alcohol is known to increase bleeding time by making platelets less likely to form a blood clot. A beer or more a day lowers the concentration of several blood clotting factors.
  • Reductions in insulin concentrations and improvements in insulin resistance. Middle aged men and women who were moderate drinkers had significantly lower insulin levels and insulin resistance indexes than either nondrinkers or heavy drinkers.