Beer is an alcoholic beverage. Obviously too much alcohol makes you drunk which is not too good for your health. Yet beer does have its positive benefits. One, of course, is to reduce stress (at least short term). A new study suggests that beer is a significant source of dietary silicon, a key ingredient for increasing bone mineral density. Researchers from the Department of Food Science & Technology at the University of California, Davis studied commercial beer production to determine the relationship between beer production methods and the resulting silicon content, concluding that beer is a rich source of dietary silicon. Details of this study are available in the February issue of the Journal of the Science of Food and Agriculture, published by Wiley-Blackwell on behalf of the Society of Chemical Industry.
Beer is an alcoholic beverage. Obviously too much alcohol makes you drunk which is not too good for your health. Yet beer does have its positive benefits. One, of course, is to reduce stress (at least short term).
A new study suggests that beer is a significant source of dietary silicon, a key ingredient for increasing bone mineral density. Researchers from the Department of Food Science & Technology at the University of California, Davis studied commercial beer production to determine the relationship between beer production methods and the resulting silicon content, concluding that beer is a rich source of dietary silicon. Details of this study are available in the February issue of the Journal of the Science of Food and Agriculture, published by Wiley-Blackwell on behalf of the Society of Chemical Industry.
!ADVERTISEMENT!Beer is one of the world's oldest and most widely consumed alcoholic beverage. It is produced by the brewing and fermentation of starches, mainly derived from cereal grains; most commonly malted barley, although wheat, maize (corn), and rice are widely used. Most beer is flavored with hops, which add bitterness and act as a natural preservative, though other flavorings such as herbs or fruit may occasionally be included.
"The factors in brewing that influence silicon levels in beer have not been extensively studied, " said Charles Bamforth, lead author of the beer and silicon study. "We have examined a wide range of beer styles for their silicon content and have also studied the impact of raw materials and the brewing process on the quantities of silicon that enter wort and beer."
Silicon is present in beer in the soluble form of orthosilicic acid, which yields 50% bioavailability, making beer a major contributor to silicon intake in the Western diet. According to the National Institutes of Health (NIH), dietary silicon, may be important for the growth and development of bone and connective tissue, and beer appears to be a major contributor to silicon intake. Based on these findings, some studies suggest moderate beer consumption may help fight osteoporosis, a disease of the skeletal system characterized by low bone mass and deterioration of bone tissue.
Osteoporosis is a disease of bone that leads to an increased risk of fracture. Osteoporosis is most common in women after menopause, when it is called postmenopausal osteoporosis, but may also develop in men.
The researchers examined a variety of raw material samples and found little change in the silicon content of barley during the malting process. The majority of the silicon in barley is in the husk, which is not affected greatly during malting. The malts with the higher silicon contents are pale colored which have less heat stress during the malting process. The darker products, such as the chocolate, roasted barley and black malt, all have substantial roasting and much lower silicon contents than the other malts for reasons that are not yet known.
The hop samples analyzed showed surprisingly high levels of silicon with as much as four times more silicon than is found in malt. However, hops are invariably used in a much smaller quantity than is grain. Highly hopped beers, however, would be expected to contain higher silicon levels.
The study also tested 100 commercial beers for silicon content and categorized the data according to beer style and source. The average silicon content of the beers sampled ranged from 6.4 to 56.5 mg/L.
"Beers containing high levels of malted barley and hops are richest in silicon," concludes Dr. Bamforth. "Wheat contains less silicon than barley because it is the husk of the barley that is rich in this element. While most of the silicon remains in the husk during brewing, significant quantities of silicon nonetheless are extracted into wort and much of this survives into beer."
For further information: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2010-02/w-rrl020310.php
