Beer and Wine May Be Good for Your Bones

Is that right? Yes, in moderation, beer and wine may be good for your bones.

The findings of the study were reported in April issue of American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.  It seems that older men and postmenopausal women who have one or two glasses of beer or wine a day have stronger bones than both nondrinkers and heavy drinkers.

It has been suggested that wine drinkers are associated with lower risk of heart disease, but it also has been suggested that alcohol increases the risk for some cancers. Even though their study found that beer and wine could be beneficial to bone strength, the researchers cautioned that people need to balance the risks and benefits of alcohol with their individual health concerns.

The participants of this study, Framingham Osteoporosis Study, extracted from the Framingham Offspring cohort (original population based Framingham Heart Study). The report was based on the data collected from 1,289 postmenopausal women, 248 premenopausal women and 1,182 men. The participants’ ages were from 29 to 86 years. They completed the food-frequency questionnaires and their alcohol intake. The bone mineral density (BMD) measurements were taken in their right hips and lumbar spine.

The mean BMI was 27-29 (overweight) for all groups. Among men, beer was the main alcoholic drink, as for women, wine was the most commonly consumed.

The hip BMD was greater (3.4 – 4.5%) in men consuming 1-2 drinks a day than the nondrinkers. Although moderate (1-2 drinks) improved BMD, men who had more than two drinks a day had hip and spine BMD measurements lower (3.0 – 5.2%) than in men who drank less. Moreover, postmenopausal women consuming more than 2 drinks a day had the hip and spine BMD measurement higher (5.0 – 8.3%) than the nondrinkers.

The lead author of the study, Katherine L. Tucker, director of the Dietary Assessment and Epidemiology Research Program at the Jean Mayer USDA Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging at Tufts University in Boston, said “we were looking at the relationship between different types of alcohol and BMD because there is a controversy about how it might affect bone. Alcohol was protective of BMD in older men and postmenopausal women, but we didn’t see any relationship in premenopausal women.”"

The authors suggest that the relationship is complex but there might be components in beer and wine that could help protect bones.  Silicon is a major component of  beer that may promote bone formation. Furthermore, it has been reported previously that higher dietary intake of silicon is associated with higher BMD. The major constituent of wine that has been receiving considerable attention, in particularly to heart disease is resveratrol.   Reverastrol demonstrated to increase BMD in rats. Therefore, reverastrol may be associated to not only protect your heart but your bones as well.

The paper concluded the following: moderate consumption (1-2 drinks) of beer or wine is good for bone. On the other hand,  high liquor consumption (more than 2 drink a day) in men was associated with lower BMD. The relative association of BMD with beer and wine and not so much with liquor suggest that other than alcohol contributes to the bone health.

It has been reported not long ago that moderate drinking can increase the risk of cancer in postmenopausal women (February 2009, online edition of the Journal of the National Cancer Institute). The study found that moderate drinking accounts for 13 percent of breast, liver, rectum and upper respiratory/digestive tract cancers.

Everyone has their own identity; you have to think about your own risks and you family history and try to balance all together. If you have a history of breast cancer in your family then you should be careful with alcohol. On the other hand, if you are concern about heart disease and osteoporosis, then 1 or 2 glasses of wine will probably be beneficial. At the end, moderation is the key word. You need to balance it all, good nutrition with a variety of food, and moderation. Nothing should be taken in excess, because too much of anything is bad.

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