Protect Your Brain Still think beer kills brain cells? It might feel like you’ve zapped some neurons after a few too many cold ones, but it’s time to put that old myth to rest. Consider new research published in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry: Researchers at China’s Lanzhou University subjected rat brain cells to a host of stressors, mimicking the conditions thought to cause diseases like Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s. Xanthohumol, a potent antioxidant found in hops, protected the cells from damage, even in concentrations low enough to be achieved by drinking one beer per day. The finding goes hand in hand with a new analysis of 32 different studies probing the relationship between alcohol and Parkinson’s that was published in Movement Disorders. The final conclusion? Only beer was associated with a reduced risk of the neurodegenerative disease. Each brew you drink per day, the study says, brings a 5% drop in risk. MORE: Coffee vs. Beer: Which Helps You Live Longer? Prevent Kidney Stones Research in the Clinical Journal of the American Society of Nephrology studied the connection between common beverages and risk of kidney stones over an 8-year period. Beer turned out to be more effective than coffee, tea, or orange juice at preventing kidney stones, slashing risk by 41%. (Wine was a distant second, reducing risk by 31% to 33%.) Researchers credit beer’s diuretic effect for this particular benefit. Promote Healthy Joints Harvard researchers pooled self-reported drinking data from more than 100,000 female nurses and found that women who drank beer 2 to 4 times weekly lowered the risk for rheumatoid arthritis by 31%. The authors posit that beer’s ability to suppress inflammatory proteins is behind the study findings. MORE: The Beer-Drinking Stomach Bug That Could Make Your Gut Very Happy
