Science! #1

Allow me to introduce yet another episodic feature of "Where the Wild Things Were Last Thursday Around 8;" "Science!" highlights some choice news and findings from the magical, God-Punching world of scientific research and discovery.


I can't express to you, my reader, how much I love beer, so I'm not even going to try; other than to say I'm thinking about the first time I ever sipped from my father's can of Genny Lite and tears of joy are streaming down my cheeks. Of course, later in life I'd find out that beer also causes uncontrollable tears of a different, more pathetic sort, but then again, this post has nothing to do with the downside of beer and everything to do with the most recent beer affirming discovery from Science Land.

Spanish researchers have recently discovered that drinking beer, even in moderation, could help stop bones from becoming brittle. Apparently beer is made up of things other than the freshest hops, finest barley and the snow lined waters of the Colorado Rocky Mountains; in fact, beer contains something called "silicon" which is a vital element in bone formation. Of course, I'm not a scientist and the only frame of reference I have for silicon is breast implants and computer chips; so needless to say that words means absolutely nothing to me, but beer is lousy with the stuff, so it must be awesome.

Pictured above: The atomic structure of silicon

Silicon is, in fact, awesome and a huge contributor to the health and wellness of your bones, but it's not the only beneficial member of the chemical contents of your average ale. Beer is also rich in photoestrogens (the plant version of oestrogen) which help to keep bones healthy. The article linked to above goes further into the particulars and describes the methods used by the Spanish researchers, so I won't bore you with the minutiae, but beer is a multifaceted health helper. I bet you didn't know that you could drink a pint of beer each day and still get the heart healthy benefits of a glass of red wine; did you know that? I didn't until I read this article from Forbes Magazine by Allison Van Dusen. Also: this is the only time I've actually read an entire article in Forbes Magazine without feeling like I owed someone money, so, win-win-win.

His left arm will be stronger, but his right arm will be happier.

I'm so excited about all this pro-beer news that I'm shaking with anticipation for my post work brew, but all the articles I keep reading about beer mention this thing "moderation;" which I'm assuming is another science-y buzz word that doctors and Spanish researchers insert into random sentences to make themselves sound smart. As evidenced by this quote from Dr. R. Curtis Ellison "Alcohol, including beer, in moderation raises high-density lipoprotein or HDL, known as good cholesterol." If you, like me, initially thought Dr. Ellison is just another quack working for "Big Ale", you'd be wrong; he's actually chief of the section of preventive medicine and epidemiology and professor of medicine and public health at the Boston University School of Medicine. Aside from having the longest title in the history of administrative titling, he's the real deal, and not to be trifled with about beer and it's healthy consequences. The man actually studies the relationship between moderate (whatever that is) alcohol consumption and it's relationship to chronic diseases; otherwise known as "the best research science job ever."

In the Forbes article by Ms. Van Dusen, it goes on to mention that beer appears to favorably affect the lining of the blood vessels, meaning a clot is less likely to form, or for a clot to burst and clog an artery, and may help protect against Type-2 Diabetes. Also, men who reported drinking alcoholic beverages 120-365 days a year had a 20% lower cardiovascular death rate than those who reported drinking alcohol 1-36 days a year. This explains why Jesus ran around turning water into wine all the time.

King of the Brews

Oddly enough drinking beer does have it's downsides. According to a research study conducted by the National Institute of Health, men who drank 5 or more alcoholic beverages when they decided they wanted to tie one on were 30% more likely to die from some form of heart disease. This is bad news for me and pretty much everyone I hang out with, and when you add in the cigarettes and lack of exercise we're all just wasting time before the "big one" hits and we're forced to stop smoking and drinking all together so we can squeeze out a few more years. Here I am again talking smack about the best beverage in the world, but I wouldn't feel responsible if I didn't mention the side-effects of too much consumption.

Anyway, back to what makes beer the greatest. Studies have shown that men over the age of 65 who drink 1 to 6 alcoholic beverages over the course of a week turn out to have a lower risk of dementia (but a much higher risk of "drunkenly yelling at the T.V") than non-drinkers according to the study published in The Journal of the American Medical Association in 2003. I, for one, was startled by this particular revelation, because I grew up going to the Country Club watching old men drink 1-6 alcoholic beverages and by beverage 2-3 none of them made any damn sense. Of course, my perspective was that of an underage young man belligerently watching generations past deteriorate into husks of their former selves; I had no idea that through the magical, healing powers of beer they were actually working diligently to conserve their precious memories. I was so young and naive.

"So, that's where I left my keys! Thanks, Beer!"

I hope anyone reading this has the smarts to know that I'm not in any way, shape or form a man of science (as I've said before). I'm just a hapless blog writer with an undying love for beer and will go to great lengths in order to justify my passion. So, please, don't take me seriously, drink at your own caution and never, ever drink and drive. If science has taught us anything it's that in order to respect the world around us we have to start with respecting ourselves, and only then can we investigate the mysterious inner workings of wonderful things like alcohol. In other words: Don't be an idiot, be a scientist!