Beer consumption contributes to improving the composition of the gut microbiota, a factor that has been associated with the prevention of very common chronic diseases, such as obesity, diabetes and cardiovascular diseases.
The conclusion is from a study led by Ana Faria and Conceição Calhau, researchers at CINTESIS – Center for Health Technology and Services Research/NOVA Medical School – Faculty of Medical Sciences, and published in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry.
The team of scientists recruited healthy men, ages 23 to 58, to participate in a clinical trial that consisted in drinking 330 mL of beer daily, with or without alcohol, for four weeks.
The results indicate that consumption of this beverage, resulting from cereal fermentation, increases the diversity of the intestinal microbiota, without increasing weight and fat mass.
Similarly, beer intake does not significantly interfere with cardiometabolic biomarkers such as glucose, LDL and HDL cholesterol, and triglycerides, among others. Interestingly, alkaline phosphatase, an important biomarker of liver, kidney and bone damage, decreased over the course of the trial.
This benefit of beer on gut health proved to be independent of alcohol content, i.e., it occurs whether one consumes beer with alcohol (5.2%) or non-alcoholic beer (0%).
According to the researchers, the beneficial effect of beer should be related to the polyphenols present in beer, as is the case with red wine. Thus, the deleterious effects of alcohol, presented in other studies, seem to be supplanted by the advantages of polyphenols on the intestinal microbiome.
“Our study demonstrates that this type of beverage rich in polyphenols, in this case, beer, is an interesting approach to increase the diversity of the intestinal microbiota,” they say.
The authors also recall that, according to another study by this group from CINTESIS/NOVA Medical School, a low variety of bacteria present in the gut is related to a higher risk of having severe COVID-19, a condition in which obesity and diabetes are important risk factors.
Thus, the researchers suggest that promoting changes in the intestinal microbiota through dietary interventions may contribute to the prevention of a number of diseases.
In addition to Ana Faria and Conceição Calhau, other CINTESIS researchers are the authors of this study, namely Cláudia Marques, Liliana Dinis, Inês Barreiros Mota, Juliana Morais, Shámila Ismael, André Rosário, Diogo Pestana, and Diana Teixeira.