This Ale Might Actually Be Good For Your Gut Health

In recent years, researchers have been accumulating evidence to suggest that certain beers could help improve the diversity of species in the gut microbiome, something which tends to be associated with health benefits.

Some beers contain beneficial polyphenols.

Now, a review of experiments published in the journal Frontiers in Nutrition has concluded that the various ingredients within beer may have a positive impact on the immune system, when broken down and fermented within the gut. For 'beer', read ale, as heavily filtered lagers have much smaller amounts of these beneficial ingredients.

According to Megan Rossi, a nutrition researcher at King’s College London and founder of The Gut Health Doctor, this is due to plant chemicals known as polyphenols which are found in certain beers, which are known to be useful foods for the bacteria in the gut. “Bacteria have been shown to digest about 90 percent of polyphenols and turn them into chemicals, which can have anti-inflammatory effects,” she says.

From the 1920s to the 1960s, marketing taglines such as My Goodness, My Guinness and Guinness for Strength firmly established the brand as arguably the world’s most popular stout. And this is the beer that's now being touted as the best for gut health.

But while there are no suggestions Guinness adds muscle mass, it is thought to be rich in certain plant chemicals. “Some polyphenols are particularly high in Guinness,” says Rossi. “We talk about diversity (being good for the gut), and that’s the case for drinks as well. So, if you drank a little bit of Guinness one night, and then a little red wine another time, while keeping within the alcohol limit, that’s probably going to get you a wider range of these polyphenols.”

However, nobody is saying the anything with alcohol is a health drink! It's just that Guinness is most likely to be beneficial for your gut health.

Belgian professor Jeroen Raes, who has examined the possible effects of beer on the microbiome as part of the Flemish Gut Flora Project, cautions that we still know relatively little and that the alcohol within beer may cancel out any positive findings.

“My feeling is that if beer has an effect on the gut, the effect size will be relatively limited,” he says. “And I’m not certain that it’s by definition, a beneficial one.”

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