Menopause Menu: Beer and Menopause Symptoms
Jul 09, 2022
One of my favorite “happy places” is having a beer while watching a movie in the theater. So when one of my friends told me that her nutritionist mentioned the benefits of beer on serotonin, I immediately got interested in finding out more about the potential benefits of beer. I dived into the research to find out if there is any scientific proof about the potential benefits of beer for menopausal women and women’s health overall. To my surprise, there are quite a few reviews and studies on this topic, and here are the key points:
- Might improve bone health in postmenopausal women and body hydration in all women (Soler, et al., 2020)
- Regular and moderate (< 7 drinks per week) consumption of the polyphenols found in beer may help with hot flashes and night sweats, as well as osteoporosis and cardiovascular risk. (Sandoval-Ramirez, et al., 2017)
- When combined with high-intensity interval training, non-alcoholic beer lead to a decrease in abdominal fat in study participants (Yamazaki, et al., 2018). This might be of particular interest since belly fat is one of the top complaints of women going through menopause. To read more about belly fat and how menopause contributes to it, check out my article on it here.
- There’s promising research indicating that it could have beneficial effects on the gut microbiome.
- Women that consume light to moderate amounts of beer and other fermented alcoholic beverages have lower incidents of dementia (especially wine), type 2 diabetes, coronary heart disease, stroke, and obesity.
Note: By no means am I advocating the consumption of alcohol for the treatment of menopause symptoms. The research on the health risks associated with alcohol is abundant and it is important to note that the non-alcoholic versions of drinks containing polyphenols have the same beneficial bioactive compounds as the alcoholic version without the health risks associated with alcohol consumption. Also, many other foods and drinks contain polyphenols, which appear to be the reason for the majority of the health benefits of beer. I’ve written about a few of those foods such as tea and berries. Click on each to read more about them.
