The New-Old Herbal Medicine: Beer!

Beer is the oldest alcoholic beverage in the world, as well as the most popular. Ale, Lager, Pale, Dark, Lambic... so many different types, different tastes, different textures, and all of them contain hops. Hops are used in beer to add the bitterness to the beer and add the many different aromas that are associated with the type of beer. Another thing that hops does, is contain xanthohumol, a natural compound that is shown to have many medical benefits, including one that can fight and protect against prostrate, breast, bowel, and many other cancers.

When hops is presented as a core ingredient of beer with a high alcohol percentage, hops is the one that causes the drowsy after drinking effects and has been known to treat many kinds of sleep disturbances, but curing cancer is one that no one saw coming. The antioxidants that come from the hops ingredient xanthohumol, is more than the known and strong antioxidant, vitamin E.

Germany researchers uncovered that xanthohumol could be improved and brewed into a unique anti-cancer beer. Not only could beer be used as a way of coming up with an herbal cancer treatment, but other compounds found in hops are led to believe that they could assist in stopping those annoying hot flashes that come with post menopause as well as osteoporosis.

When it comes to which beer is better for you, many researchers say the darker the beer, the better that it is going to be for you because dark beer is more bitter meaning there is more hops in the brew. More hops mean more antioxidants to fight the body's toxins. Not only will beer protect from post menopause symptoms, cancer, and osteoporosis, you can count on it reducing cholesterol!

For many years doctors, researchers, and scientists have believed that keeping our body free of toxins were the way to a healthy life, therefore the constant lectures about how antioxidants are a must in the daily diet. When the subject of cancer arises, antioxidants such as beta carotene, lycopene, and vitamins C, E, and A, are needed to protect and stabilize cells from damage that is caused by unbalanced molecules in the body that in due course can guide the way to cancer.