WHILE drinking too much alcohol increases the risk of cancer, it seems that non-alcoholic beer can have a protective effect.
Some cancers are caused by heterocyclic amines, DNA-damaging chemicals found in cooked meat and fish. When Sakae Arimoto-Kobayashi’s team at Okayama University in Japan fed these chemicals to mice, the DNA damage to their liver, lungs and kidneys was reduced by up to 85 per cent if the mice drank non-alcoholic beer instead of water (Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, DOI: 10.1021/jf049208k).
Arimoto-Kobayashi thinks as-yet unidentified compounds in lager and stout prevent the amines binding to and damaging…
