Drinking Beer Prevents Osteoporosis?

Tuesday, February 9, 2010

Well, it is commonly known that consuming milk regularly, eating high-calcium foods and doing exercise are effective to prevent osteoporosis. Now, researcher has found another great way to prevent osteoporosis. The way is simple yet quite fun to do, drinking beer! Is it true that drinking beer prevents osteoporosis?

Cuticle of barley, the main ingredient to make beer contains high mineral namely silicon. This mineral is hardly considered as the main factor to prevent osteoporosis. The content level of silicon will grow higher in the formulating process.

They are only a few studies ever conducted about silicon content in beer. However, Charles Bamforth, a professor of food technology from University of California is able to find a correlation between silicon content with bone mineralization.

Journal of the Science f or Food and Agriculture stated that beer contains mineral silicon that has same function to calcium, which is slowing down the bone thinning process in the body, and enhancing and strengthening bone density while increasing the new bone development process.

Beer contains about 90 percents alcohol, sugar fermentation (malt) derived from rice seeds, pure sugar, fruit s flavor (hop) which gives a sharp sour and astringent taste, and yeast (microorganism) to process fermentation sugar to alcohol and carbon dioxide.

Excerpting from Healthday, Prof. Charles said that beer contains high silicon derived from wheat seeds fermentation and hop fruit. It content can make strong and healthy bone as it gives a huge amount of mineral to the bone.
In their study, researcher had tested 100 commercial beer and found different level of silicon in each beer. The amount of silicon in beer varies from 6.4 to 56.5 milligram per liter.

However, some people are not agree consuming beer to prevent osteoporosis, as there are many others sources available. Besides beer, silicon can easily found in beans and potatoes, but in less amount.