Beer helps against kidney stones and heart problems, gives you a nice clear skin and is recommended for sports persons. Provided, of course, that you don’t have too much of a good thing. Professor Dr. Manfred Walzl, neurologist at the mental clinic in Austrian Graz, runs through some of the wholesome effects.

Beer is ‘in’: no fewer than three thousand research projects and studies on beer have been conducted to date. Some of them also concern cancer. Some really fascinating work has been done in this connection in Japan, the United States and Germany. The substance xanthohumol, which is present in hops, seems to have an anti-cancer effect one hundred times that of green tea and soya. The U.S. has even granted authorization to place ‘anti-cancer beer’ on the market.

In Poland and the Czech Republic beer is prescribed and state-refunded for the treatment of urological conditions, because research has shown that beer is an effective weapon against kidney stones. Beer also has an antibacterial effect, which is useful against helicobacter infection in the stomach.

Manfred Walzl thinks it is unfair that beer is said not to be good for sports persons. The famous Czech marathon runner Zatopek drank beer every time he ran, because, in his experience, beer helped to restore muscular capacity in times of stress and also saved the muscles from damage.

The pantothenic acid and vitamin B complex in beer also makes your skin smooth and supple. Cleopatra already had a fair idea, so she changed her asses’ milk for a beer bath. The cosmetics industry also discovered a long time ago that beer shampoos and rinses are good for the hair.

All these effects are of course only healthy so long as beer consumption remains within sane and sensible limits: the limit for men being set at one litre per day, and half of that for women.

Professor Walzl is currently researching the effect of beer on the fatigue ascribed to beer. By measuring the diameter of the pupils it was demonstrated that beer does not induce fatigue. On the contrary. This research will soon appear in print.

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