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You Should Absolutely Have that After-Work Beer Today

Lately, browsing through Romanian magazines and newspapers I keep coming across articles about the awesomeness of beer—articles on how it is food not booze, how it can cure kidney stones and how, during the summer months, it could even replace water.

Photo via Flickr user Smull

Lately, browsing through Romanian magazines and newspapers I keep coming across articles about the awesomeness of beer—articles on how it is food not booze, how it can cure kidney stones and how, during the summer months, it could even replace water. It's not like I needed any convincing but looking into this trend, I quickly found out that all that information is being fed to the Romanian press by something called the Center for Beer Studies, Health and Nutrition.

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Founded in 2012 by Dr. Corina Zugravu, Dr. Alin Popescu and Dr. Mihaela Begeaâ, the CBSHN is essentially a committee that offers scholarships to MA, MBA and PhD candidates whose research is based on beer. In the two years they have been active, they have given out four scholarships as well as supervised those students' research.

From this research, beer seems to be a wonder beverage, which can prevent sicknesses like osteoporosis, diabetes, ulcers, Parkinson, senility and heart attacks. Also they recommend drinking one or two glasses of beer per day, depending on your gender. But I read in a psychology magazine that you have to take at least a three-day break between glasses to avoid becoming an alcoholic. To get things straight, I spoke to Cornelia Zugravu, the president of the Beer Center.

VICE: What was the first research your center published?
Cornelia Zugravu: We launched the first one last year with funds from the beer industry. It identified certain possible positive effects of moderate beer consumption on the memory and the attention span. We used the latest generation of neural imaging to find out how beer helps us remember things better and stimulates the attention centers on our brain by better incorporating data in our long term memory.

Moderate beer drinking also amplifies the impact of positive memories on the brain. The research was done on 29 men between 18 and 64 years, and moderate consumption of beer, which ranged from four to 14 glasses.

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If beer stimulates our attention span, why can't we drink and drive?
You could always go with non-alcoholic beer.

I read that beer is addictive. Is that true?
All studies and statements, be they our own or international, are based on a moderate consumption of beer. In this context, there are no health risks—not even those of addiction.

At what point does beer become bad for you?
It depends on individual characteristics, such as weight, height and sex. The tolerance level differs from one body to another. To keep the study in the area of positive effects we found the right level of consumption, which scientifically does not put the body at risk. That is 0.66 liters per day for men and 0.33 liters per day for women, if the beer has an alcohol concentration of five percent.

Is fortified beer dangerous?
The recipe for beer has remained unchanged for years and it only contains cereals, hops, water and yeast. The alcoholic concentration is obtained only through fermentation.

Your site says that a glass a day can significantly increase good cholesterol. What is good cholesterol and how can beer improve it?
According to a study done by Hebrew University in Israel, people who consume moderate amounts of beer, have a lower incidence of heart attack and other heart ailments. That is because moderate beer drinking helps stimulate good cholesterol production (cholesterol HDL), which reduces the risk of arterial sickness. Good cholesterol acts as a vacuum cleaner for excess cholesterol, while the bad kind sticks to the walls of the blood vessels. Is non-filtered beer better than normal beer for our health?
Both national and international studies focus on normal beer. But surely unfiltered beer has the same benefits.

Despite all these discoveries, your don't advise people to start drinking. Why is that?
We don't promote beer drinking. We can't tell a person to get drunk, but we can give relevant information about this product to consumers and the scientific community, to help them make the right choices.