by Paul Fassa
Health Impact News

There have been two recent animal studies in Spain indicating that beer is capable of removing aluminum from brain cells, allowing the brain to heal from its toxicity and inflammation. The most recent study used non-alcoholic beer, and the earlier one used beer with alcohol.

Both types of beer, mostly due to their antioxidant hops content and silica from silicic acid used in the brewing process, have been observed leaching aluminum from aluminum nitrate induced into lab rats.

Aluminum that gets into brain tissue creates all sorts of neurological ills.

Silica binds with aluminum to neutralize its toxicity and escort it out of the body through urine. Cucumbers and the herb horsetail are high in silica that doesn’t penetrate the blood-brain barrier. Beer contains the silicic acid which does. 

But there is a serious caveat for using beer to eliminate aluminum from the brain that will be discussed in this article.

See also:

High Amounts of Aluminum in Brains of Alzheimer’s Patients

The Most Beer Recent Study

A new study was published in June 2018, in the journal Food and Chemical Toxicology as Can nonalcoholic beer, silicon and hops reduce the brain damage and behavioral changes induced by aluminum nitrate in young male Wistar rats?

The purpose of the study was to determine if non-alcoholic (NA) beer could reduce aluminum toxicity in the brain, considered a precursor to Alzheimer’s and other neurodegenerative diseases, and which ingredients of NA beer were most effective.

Prior to the in vivo animal testing, hops, silicic acid, and non-alcoholic (NA) beer were tested for there ability in vitro (lab cultures) to ameliorate the effects of aluminum (Al) toxicity. In vitro testing showed hops, the flowers used in brewing beer, to have the highest antioxidant activity. 

Beer has been considered a food high in silica as silicic acid, which is able to penetrate the blood-brain barrier. Further in vivo testing confirmed silicon’s (Si) ability at binding with aluminum to neutralize its toxicity and allowing it to be eliminated from brain cells in the urine. 

Forty male Wistar rats were divided into five groups of eight. One group as control was not administered any reagent (compound to create chemical change). All four other groups were administered aluminum nitrate to induce aluminum toxicity. Three of the induced Al toxicity groups were fed either NA beer, hops extract, or silicic acid. 

Many, but not all, beers are brewed with hops and/or barley. Some brewers use wheat also.

But silicic acid is used in all beer brewing processes to greater or lesser extents. So, each of the three groups were administered NA beer, silicic acid, and hops extract to determine the exact component efficacy of each in addition to NA beer. Summary from the study’s text:

… the current study demonstrates the ability of NABeer to counteract the neurodegenerative effects induced by aluminum nitrate as revealed by both in vitro and in vivo experiments. The in vitro ACh [acetylcholine – brain neurotransmitter] inhibition and the in vivo Nrf2 [“master regulator of antioxidant, detoxification and cell defense gene expression…”] pathway activation found invite discussion and demand more studies to better account for mechanisms that relate NABeer consumption with neurodegenerative protection. NABeer appears to be potentially valuable as a therapeutic tool with a role as a functional multi-target drink. [emphasis added] (Source.) 

The earlier 2016 animal study, published in early 2017 in the Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease, conducted by mostly the same research team, and with similar methods, had used alcoholic beer and received similar results. Here’s their abstract.

Modern Day Problems in Drinking Beer: Almost all Mass-produced Beers are Contaminated

While beer is a traditional, fermented drink that has been enjoyed by cultures all over the world for probably thousands of years, and is a healthy beverage when made traditionally, today’s modern-day beer drinkers face many challenges in finding healthy beer.

In a 2014 interview with Health Impact News, Dr. Don Huber discussed the practice of grain farmers in North America spraying the herbicide glyphosate, the active ingredient in Monsanto’s RoundUp, on grain crops to kill them before harvest.

Barley, one of the main grains used to produce beer, was particularly troublesome according to Dr. Huber:

There are two reasons that a farmer wants to [use glyphosate on non-GMO crops]. It is for late season weed control in situations where he has patches of green weeds in the field that came up late. [This is commonly done with wheat and barley.] It is a little slower to harvest when weeds are present.

The other reason involves late season snow. In the northern region such as in the Dakotas, in certain parts of Montana, and in the Prairies of Canada, there is a very short growing season.  If it snows on the crop at harvest then you may lose the crop, because you can’t get back into the field to do the harvest. In these regions, 70% of the wheat and barley are desiccated with glyphosate before harvest. [This kills the plant so that it will wilt and dry]. Farmers don’t want to take a risk in losing their entire wheat and barley crop, so they will take a cut in yield and quality by using glyphosate a few weeks before harvest, and then harvest the crop early.

Farmers don’t realize how much they are contaminating that food or feed product when they do this. They will accept the cut [in quality and quantity of the crop], because that can buy them a week advantage in harvest. It’s really more done for ease and planning. However, it is just the dumbest thing you could ever do from a health and safety standpoint.

In fact, beer brewers are having a problem with glyphosate. A few years ago, when one of my colleagues wanted to get more Abraxis test strips for testing materials for glyphosate residue, he was told that they had a 3 month backlog.

He asked, what was causing this? He was told that every load of malt barley coming out of North Dakota has to be tested, because the glyphosate levels were so high that it kills the yeast in the brew mix. (Source.)

For example, Germany is known for having some of the strictest standards in the world for producing high quality beers, but a 2016 report by a German environmental group found traces of glyphosate in Germany’s 14 most popular beers. (Source.)

Germany, of course, is home to what is now the largest producer of GM seeds, Bayer, which just bought out Monsanto.

Other than brewing your own beer from ingredients you know are not contaminated, it might be best to choose beers produced in countries that are banning GMOs, such as Mexico.

But given the world trade commerce of grains, and the U.S. dominance in the grain market, even buying beer from countries banning GMOs may not be safe.

Another potentially huge problem for beer drinkers on the horizon is the recent announcement that genetic engineers in California have genetically engineered brewers’ yeast that can make a beer-like substance without the use of hops. (Source.)

See also:

Almost All American Grains are Contaminated with Glyphosate Herbicide 

Find out more about glyphosate here. 

Using High Silica Mineral Water for Aluminum Brain Detox Instead of Beer

High silica mineral waters are able to transport silicic acid in ionic suspension through the brain barrier and into the brain.

A recent British study had 15 elderly dementia patients drinking a liter of bottled Spritzer mineral water, preferably consumed within an hour, daily for 13 weeks. Blood levels were reduced 50 to 70 percent among all the subjects. 

Three of them showed considerable improvement and the others demonstrated slight improvement or no further deterioration. (Source.)

Spritzer contains 35 mg of silicic acid per liter. Volvic bottled water has only 20 mg, and Fiji bottled water leads the way with 45 mg per liter. All of these milligram amounts per liter translate to parts per million (ppm). It’s recommended that one should drink waters containing at least 30 mg/liter or 30 ppm.