Beer protects your prostate

Agençe France-Presse

Tuesday, 13 June 2006

The good news is that beer may prevent prostate cancer. The bad news is that you'll destroy your liver if you drink enough to have any effect (Image: iStockphoto)

One of the main ingredients in beer appears to thwart prostate cancer, according to findings released by US researchers.

But you would have to quaff more than 17 pints to imbibe a medically effective dose of xanthohumol, the apparently cancer-fighting antioxidant found in hops, says researcher Emily Ho.

"From my studies, you would have to drink an awful lot of beer," says Ho, assistant professor of health and human science at Oregon State University.

"So the counter effects of the alcohol may outweigh any health benefits from drinking beer."

Co-author Fred Stevens of the university's College of Pharmacy, says it's feasible to make pills containing concentrated doses of xanthohumol or to bump up the level of the chemical in hops.

Scientists in Germany have already brewed up a beer containing ten times as much xanthohumol as found in traditional recipes, Stevens says.

The brew is being marketed in Germany as a healthy beer, but any effect on cancer rates is yet to be shown, he says.

Beer and pizza
Richard Atkins, head of the US National Prostate Cancer Coalition, says tomato sauce is also believed to be an effective cancer fighter.

This means that beer and pizza could be a winning anti-cancer formula.

"It's every man's dream to hear that beer and pizza can prevent cancer," he says.

"Bur our hope is that men know the facts and get tested for prostate cancer. Food no matter how helpful it may be is not a full preventive for prostate cancer."

While the research regarding xanthohumol is promising, Ho cautions that further study is necessary.

"The one caveat is that all our work is done in a laboratory system using cultured cells with purified compounds," she says.

Now for more good news
Meanwhile, a separate study has found that drinking coffee may help prevent the liver disease alcoholic cirrhosis.

The study of more than 125,000 people found that for each cup of coffee they drank per day, participants were 22 % less likely to develop alcoholic cirrhosis.

"These data support the hypothesis that there is an ingredient in coffee that protects against cirrhosis, especially alcoholic cirrhosis," concludes the report from the Kaiser Permanente Medical Care Program in Oakland.

The authors said they could not determine whether it was caffeine or another ingredient in coffee which had the protective effect.

The study is published in the American Medical Association's Archives of Internal Medicine.

The authors say the findings don't suggest heavy drinkers should rely on coffee to prevent alcoholic cirrhosis.

"Even if coffee is protective, the primary approach to reduction of alcoholic cirrhosis is avoidance or cessation of heavy alcohol drinking," they say.

Beer protects your prostate

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