"Do you like everything that is good? It's very bad!"
Today, the product "pleasure" is very quickly seen as a danger to our health.
Of course, the beverage sector is no exception to the rule, and wine, beer, spirits and all alcoholic beverages are particularly targeted. The festive drink is often perceived as bad for our body and our health.
Still, beer isn't as bad as one might think. In fact, studies even show that beer could have a positive impact on our gut microbiota. One experiment in particular, published on June 15 in the “Journal of Agriculture and Food Chemistry”, showed that beer consumption increased the diversity of bacteria in the gut.
For 4 weeks, researchers from the University of Lisbon made about twenty men consume 33cl of beer a day, with and without alcohol. The result is more than surprising: no increase in mass or fat content to note, but a better diversity of the microbiota in the subjects. But what is the role of this famous intestinal microbiota?
Our digestive tract is home to thousands of microorganisms such as bacteria, yeasts, fungi, and many others that form our gut microbiota. It is composed of some 10 billion bacteria, or more than 800 different species in an adult. The latter is the most important of the human body, playing a major role in digestion but also in the proper functioning of our immune and neurological system.
Thus, beer can have real beneficial effects on our health. So, what gave it a bad reputation? The answer is simple: alcohol. The presence of ethanol molecules in beer is enough to give it bad press.
Yet, ethanol is not bad in itself, it is quite the opposite. It is a very energetic condiment that can bring a lot to our body. On the other hand, our ability to digest ethanol is limited: excessively, alcohol consumption becomes toxic.
But then, what to do? Consume beer daily to enjoy its benefits or avoid drinking too much to avoid excessive alcohol? The key to this dilemma is simple: non-alcoholic beer! The study from the University of Lisbon shows that the presence of alcohol does not affect the effect of beer on our body. If it is necessary to consume beer, the good behavior would be to alternate alcoholic beer from time to time, non-alcoholic beer a little all the time.