In something of a dent to the usually healthy image attributed to non-alcoholic beer, researchers have found that such drinks mostly have “an unfavourable metabolic impact” on drinkers, a reason for concern to those trying to manage glucose levels.
Following tests in which 44 young men drank around a pint (473ml) of non-alcoholic beer a day for a month, the researchers said they observed “metabolic alterations” that sent glucose and fat levels up.
The rise in glucose and fat was likely caused by sugar and other “caloric content” in the buzz-free beers, according to the study published in the journal Nutrients.
The team led by Germany’s Ruhr-University Bochum and including scientists from the University of California San Diego in the United States, St Louis University in the US, and the University of the Basque Country in Spain, said they set out to investigate how the “daily consumption” of non-alcoholic beer affected “glucose and fat metabolism, body composition and liver function”.
Of the three categories of booze-free beer studied, pilsener-type drinks were the least bad, the team reported, with wheat-based pints and mixed drinks (the kind with sweeteners or soft drinks blended in) leading to metabolic effects similar to those of fizzy sweet drinks, which have long been a bête noire for health campaigners.
Sales of drinks with little or no alcohol have grown in recent years, with Britain, known for its boozy culture, seeing a doubling of sales to almost 1.3 million hectolitres in 2023, going by data put together by drinks industry analysis company IWSR.
This study is not the first to undermine the health credentials of booze-free beer, the recent market success of which follows decades of warnings about how alcohol can lead to liver disease and addiction, often with devastating consequences for families of the drinker.
In 2023, researchers at Cornell AgriTech in the US published proof that zero-alcohol drinks are more susceptible to bacterial contamination than real beer, where the alcohol acts as an “antimicrobial hurdle”. – dpa
