So is drinking acceptable if you have diabetes? The answer is yes, in moderation, providing that you take the proper precautions. The American Diabetes Association (ADA) asserts that alcohol can be incorporated into a diet plan, provided that blood sugar control is already well established and other conditions that aren’t compatible with alcohol consumption (such as pregnancy or certain diabetic complications) don’t exist.

MORE HERE

Washington, Mar 3 (ANI): Regular moderate alcohol intake is associated with greater bone mineral density (BMD), say researchers.

In an epidemiological study of men and post-menopausal women primarily over 60 years of age, scientists at the Jean Mayer USDA Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging (USDA HNRCA) at Tufts University found that BMD was significantly lower in men drinking more than two servings of liquor per day.

The results suggest that regular moderate consumption of beer or wine may have protective effects on bone, but that heavy drinking may contribute to bone loss.

“Previous research suggests that moderate alcohol consumption in older men and post-menopausal women may protect against BMD loss, a major risk factor for osteoporosis,” said Katherine L. Tucker, PhD, corresponding author and director of the Dietary Assessment and Epidemiology Research Program at the USDA HNRCA. “Our study also looks at the possible effects of the three alcohol classes, beer, wine and liquor on BMD,” Tucker continued. “We saw stronger associations between higher BMD and beer drinkers, who were mostly men, and wine drinkers, who were mostly women, compared to liquor drinkers,” the expert added.

The study has been published online February 25 by the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.

MORE HERE

A number of studies are showing that moderate consumption of alcohol, including beer, can have similar heart healthy effects as are attributed to wine, including making men 30 to 35% less likely to have a heart attack than those who abstain.

“Wine is still on moral high ground,” says Charlie Bamforth, chair and professor of the department of food science and technology at the University of California, Davis, “but beer deserves just the same acclamation.”

As to the tired argument that beer contains no nutritional value…

Red wine has more antioxidants than beer in the test tube—but studies show that antioxidants in beer may be more effective in raising blood levels of antioxidants. In fact, drinking beer is better than eating a tomato when it comes to raising blood level’s of ferulic acid, a potent antioxidant that scientists say may help fight heart disease, diabetes, cancer and Alzheimer’s.

Beer also contains B vitamins, particularly folate, which may help protect against heart disease, stroke, Alzheimer’s disease and various cancers.

MORE HERE

AND HERE

Could a pill that’s designed to treat type 2 diabetes also be the first anti-aging drug? The pills are based on a substance in, of all things, red wine.

HINT: I’t’s resveratrol. Wash it down with a glass of Malbec from Chile and dance the night away!

Is drinking acceptable if you have diabetes? The answer is yes, in moderation, providing that you take the proper precautions. The American Diabetes Association (ADA) asserts that alcohol can be incorporated into a diet plan, provided that blood sugar control is already well established and other conditions that aren’t compatible with alcohol consumption (such as pregnancy or certain diabetic complications) don’t   exist.

How It Works

When you drink, your liver decreases its ability to release glucose so that it can instead clean the alcohol from your blood. Because glucose  production is shut down, hypoglycemia (low blood sugar) becomes a risk for people with diabetes, particularly if you drink on an empty  stomach or shortly after taking insulin or glucose-lowering oral medications. And because it takes two hours for just one ounce of alcohol  to metabolize and leave your system, the risk continues long after you’ve emptied your glass. (Please note: There’s about 0.6 ounces of alcohol in a standard drink but for reasons beyond my comprehension, health writers and nutritionists refuse to acknowledge this, and instead, scare you with the higher number).

A Two-Drink Maximum

For individuals with well-controlled diabetes, alcohol intake should follow the same guidelines the United States Department of Agriculture  (USDA) has established for the general population. This means a maximum of two drinks per day for men and one drink daily for women. (A  higher alcohol intake is allowed for most men because women have a lower body water content then men and also metabolize alcohol more  slowly.) In addition, due to physiological changes such as loss of lean body mass that occur as the body ages, the National Institute on  Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism recommends that anyone over age 65 should not consume more than one alcoholic drink daily.

One drink is defined as:

MORE HERE

Carb Counts Are Included In The Book - Why Guess?

Here’s a guy who gets it. It’s all about Moderation, not Deprivation. No one’s advocating chugging a sixer and then hitting the gym. But how can you realistically make room for a beer or two if your don’t know the calories, carbs or even Weight Watchers POINTS? Real easy; pick up a copy of “Does My BUTT Look BIG In This BEER? Nutritional Values Of 2,000 Worldwide Beers” on Amazon or Barnes & Noble or download a PDF of the book on this site.

BTW,  Check out Steve Turano’s website, Body Performance TV at

http://www.BodyPerformanceTV.com/.

What's in my wine? asks Brits.

 Although no one claim this a “secret” in the wine industry, there’s more behind the making of good quality, clear wines than simply crushing the grapes and waiting for wild yeasts to finish the business. There’s the additional step of including additives to wine to properly finish it off, in some case, to add more flavor to the wine.

“Among the additives which can be added without listing are clay, acid, artificial yeasts, enzymes, sugar, gelatin, and charcoal. Eggs and a milk protein called casein can also be used, while another permitted additive is the fish bladder extract, isinglass,” says the European Union.

And this “problem” is also occuring in the U.S., making the finalization of what to include (and not include) on wine labels just one more problem that the Alcohol Tobacco Tax And Trade Bureau (TTB) will have to contend with.

Malcolm Gluck, the wine critic and author of The Great Wine Swindle, has campaigned on the issue of including additives to be listed on wine bottles in Britain, and with globalization taking hold in the wine industry, it’s to be expected that this will become an issue on this side of the pond too.

“This is a very good move,” says Gluck. “The wine industry insists on this romantic notion that wine is just crushed grapes and it continues to peddle this line, in a subliminal way and sometimes quite overtly.”

Wine producers argue that many of the additives are actually substances that the wine passes through or that are removed from wine prior to bottling.  But John Corbet-Milward, from the Wine and Spirit Trade Association, goes right to the biggest issue, the one that has not only smaller-sized vinteners, but also brewers complaining of…additional costs.  “This variance and the need to translate materials into 27 languages means precise labelling for wine covering full ingredients is estimated at one billion Euros over three years. This cost would have to be borne by consumers or by producers. The reality is that many smaller producers would stop selling products in smaller markets. Consumer choice would be diminished.”

But in the filtering process, can anyone assure consumers that all additives are removed? These substances below are all approved by EU authorities for use in the production of wine. Some of them are used in the winemaking process but are not found in the finished product:

tartaric acid

calcium tartrate

betaglucanase

lactic bacteria

ion exchange resins

potassium ferrocyanide

calcium phytate

lysozyme

dimethyldicarbonate

urease

oxygen

lees

oak wood

sulphur dioxide

calcium sulphate

sucrose

yeast cell walls

carbon dioxide

ascorbic acid

citric acid

copper sulphate

charcoal

diammonium phosphate

ammonium sulphate

ammonium sulphite

ammonium bisulphite

thiamine hydrochloride

polyvinylpolypyrrolidone

calcium tartrate

calcium phytate

lysozyme

dimethyldicarbonate

argon

nitrogen

potassium bisulphite

potassium metabisulphite

gelatin

plant proteins

isinglass

casein

potassium caseinate

ovalbumin (egg white)

lactalbumin,

bentonite

silicon dioxide or colloidal solution

kaolin

tannin

pectinolytic enzymes,

sorbic acid or potassium sorbate

potassium tartrate

potassium bicarbonate

calcium carbonate

carbon dioxide

acacia (gum arabic)

calcium alginate

potassium alginate

allyl isothiocyanate

yeast mannoproteins

MORE HERE

Confusion and misinformation reign supreme when it comes to alcohol and dieting. If you believe any of the following “untruths,” read this section carefully.

Q. Isn’t there sugar in rum?                                                                           
A. All fermentables begin as a sugary base or are converted from starch to sugar prior to fermentation. Sugar is the element that yeast needs in order to bring you the delights of ethyl alcohol, the substance that puts a smile on your face. Whether the fermentation process begins with a sugary base, as in 0 carb rum, or with the results of the mashing of starchy materials like malted barley into a sugary base, as in 0 carb vodka, is irrelevant. A couple of popular diet sites will try to steer you away from whisky (whiskey), for instance, suggesting that because it’s initially derived from grain, the final distilled product is laden with carbohydrates.

Nonsense.

Q. Isn’t there sugar in flavored vodkas?                                                         

A. The process of making a typical flavored vodka, such as produced by Grey Goose, is little different in its manufacturing than the process used to make gin. There has been such a proliferation of flavored vodkas that have come on the market in the last few years that it’s becoming hard to say with absolute certainty that “all flavored vodkas are sugar-free.” A tip-off that a flavored vodka may have added sugar in it is by noting the proof level of the vodka. As a loose rule of thumb—if the proof is less than 70° proof, be wary. Better yet, stick with big name brands and get some ideas on how to make your own flavored vodkas, a subject we’ll discuss shortly. Stay tuned for a few “How To” videos on making your own flavored liquors and liqueurs!

Q. Some wine-related websites say that there are no carbohydrates in dry wine. Is this true?  
A. More rubbish from people who have no idea of the mechanics of fermentation. The process of converting sugars to alcohol and carbon dioxide during fermentation is limited by the attenuation of the yeast or the manipulation of the fermentation by the vintner. In order for a wine to have no carbohydrates in it, it would have to be pure alcohol, in other words, distilled. Of course at that point, the liquid would no longer be wine but close to brandy or cognac in its characteristics. All—and I repeat—all wines, including dry wines, have some residual sugar left behind after the fermentation process. Residual sugar equals carbohydrates. If it were possible to use fermentation to convert a sugary liquid into a drink that was free of carbohydrates, the process of distillation would be a meaningless procedure. Only after distillation, when the resultant liquid is transformed into eythyl alcohol, will a once-fermented liquid become carbohydrate-free.

Q. What’s the difference between fermentation and distillation?

A. This is a great question since most of the confusion as to whether a liquor has residual sugars in it, and as a result, carbohydrates, stems from a lack of understanding in how it is made.

Fermentation
Before a product can be distilled, it must be fermented. However, before a product can be fermented, it must consist of a sugary base. Yeasts only feed on sugar. In the case of beer, vodka, grain alcohol, the various whiskeys and gins, the starchy interior of the grains must first be mashed and its starch converted into sugar. That is the sole purpose of mashing. In the cases of liquors like tequila, rum or even wine, this step is eliminated since the fermentables already consists of sugar.

The conversion of sugar to ethyl alcohol during fermentation, however, is limited. Sugars consist of complex and simple sugars. Yeasts attack simple sugars. Once their job is done, they either drop out to the bottom of the fementation container and go dormant or on occasion, create an environment high enough in alcoholic strength that they actually die from their own sugar-to-alcohol activity. Even some yeasts have a hard time with the concept of moderation!

Distillation
At this point, whether we’re talking about wine being distilled into brandy or cognac or the fermented runnings from the results of an initial grain mash, the fermented liquid is now heated in a still. Just as when cooking with liquor, the ethyl alcohol in the fermented liquid evaporates and rises to the top of the still, leaving everything else behind—including carbohydrates. A condenser cools the gaseous vapors back into a liquid—ethyl alcohol. With each subsequent redistillation of the raw alcohol, a cleaner and more pure product will evolve. Remember, however, that alcohol does contain calories.

Q. Alcohol is metabolized and turns into sugar in the bloostream — at least that’s my understanding.

A. Another alcohol and diet urban legend. Metabolism is the body’s process of converting ingested substances to other compounds. Metabolism results in some substances becoming more, and some less, toxic than those originally ingested. Metabolism involves a number of processes, one of which is referred to as oxidation. Through oxidation, alcohol is detoxified and removed from the blood, preventing the alcohol from accumulating and destroying cells and organs. When alcohol is consumed, it passes from the stomach and intestines into the blood. Alcohol is then metabolized by enzymes that break it down into other chemicals. In the liver, an enzyme called alcohol dehydrogenase (ADH) mediates the conversion of alcohol to acetaldehyde. Acetaldehyde is rapidly converted to acetate by other enzymes and is eventually metabolized to carbon dioxide and water. Alcohol also is metabolized in the liver by the enzyme cytochrome. Most of the alcohol consumed is metabolized in the liver, but the small quantity that remains unmetabolized permits alcohol concentration to be measured in breath and urine. As you can see, alcohol is not metabolized into sugar. Whew!

I once got into a heated discussion with a wine “expert” during a radio interview who was sure — make that positive —  that alcohol turned into sugar in the bloodstream. Needless to say, I wasn’t invited back.

Q. If the sugar in wine can ferment into alcohol, does that add sugar alcohols to the wine?

A. Whoa—information overload! Sugar alcohols such as mannitol, sorbitol and xylitol, are polyols. Chemically, they are not alcohols, and though they are derived from sugar molecules found in plant products such as fruit, they are not sugars. A chemical process alters the carbohydrates in these plants to form sugar alcohols. You’ll often see sugar alcohols used as a low carb substitute for sugar in foods. Some dieters who eat foods with sugar alcohols as an ingredient complain of a laxative effect. That being said, sugar alcohols are not part of any product that has undergone fermentation.

Q. I’ve heard that the lower the alcohol in a beer, the less carbs in it.                        

A. It’s the residual sugars left behind after fermentation that contribute to the majority of carbs in beer. Non-alcohol (NA) beers are a good example of this. A Beck’s Haake NA, for instance, hits 20 carbs per 12-ounce serving! One of the easist ways to brew a non-alcohol (NA) beer is to stop the fermentation in its earliest stages. What’s left behind is a beer with considerably more sugars and carbohydrates than a regular beer. Granted, there’s less or virtually no alcohol in the final product.

Q. I’ve read that the sugar maltose in beer goes directly to the cells in your stomach, thus the so-called “beer belly?”

A. This theory is actually still promoted in a number of popular low carb diet books and websites. The real answer in a nutshell? Nonsense! Glucose is the simple sugar that is transported into our cells and then converted to energy by a series of oxidation-reduction reactions. Maltose, as found in beer in trace or in most cases in nondiscernible amounts, is a disaccharide that consists of two glucose molecules linked in an alpha 1,4 glycosidic bond. Maltose is not absorbed from our intestines. The enzyme maltase converts maltose into a monosaccharide (glucose) before it can be absorbed—that’s why the tips of our villi in our proximal small intestine contain enzymes that break disaccharides into monosaccharides—but only part of the reason why this “maltose is bad” theory is so silly.
 
Where then does the popular “beer-belly” scenario fit in? Glucose is typically converted into fat if there is an excess in the blood compared to current metabolic needs, but the idea that maltose, after it is broken down and converted into glucose and absorbed, has some sort of homing radar that leads it directly to the abdomen where it will be converted to fat is a silly argument. To equate beer with pure maltose is an even sillier argument.

As long as you are able to absorb the sugar, it will go wherever it is needed in the body. The real reason for the “beer belly” is that people who develop them are taking in way more carbohydrates than their current metabolic needs, whether drinking beer or not. After knocking off a pizza or a couple of meatball sandwiches—then sitting on the couch the entire week-end—why call that roll around your middle a “beer belly?” Why not call it for what it really is—a carbohydrate or calorie overload belly?

There’s also ongoing research that indicates that the fat that accumulates around the mid-body region might also be because of a predisposed genetic trait, in the same way that some people has big hips or a big butt.

Q. What’s the glycemic index of beer? I’ve seen plenty of information that states that the glycemic indix (G.I.) of beer is 110. That’s higher than the G.I. of pure glucose!

A. As far as I can tell, this false assumption of the G.I. of beer is based on a number of untruths that just won’t go away and is a indicator of illogical assumptions by lazy diet book authors, dieticians and nutritionists. Michel Montignac, a Frenchman who penned Je Mange Donc je Maigris (Eat Yourself Slim) in 1987 seems to have started all of this. This book, and other similar publications that have followed from Monsieur Montignac, demonize beer but canonize wine. How? By making some incredible leaps of faith that beer is composed mainly of maltose, and as a result, has the same glycemic index of maltose. Imagine if I said that a glass of milk with a teaspoon of chocolate syrup in it had the same glycemic index as a glass of pure chocolate syrup. It just doesn’t add up.

The idea of a glycemic index for foods has been around since the early1980s when Professor Thomas Wolever, now at the University of Toronto, began research on the subject with the possibility of using this information to prevent type 2 diabetes. Wolever’s research and subsequent testing led to a way to determine the measurable effects of various foods and drinks and their effects on the increase of sugar (glucose) in one’s bloodstream after ingestion.

Montignac made the claim in his chart of foods with their glycemic indexes that maltose and beer are one and the same in terms of the glycemic index. The fact that maltose is one of the simple sugars that are eaten by yeasts during fermentation seems to have eluded him—and also a number of contemporary diet book authors who blindy use Montignac’s “research” to bolster their argument that light and regular-brewed beers can’t be part of a LC diet or controlled carbohydrate lifestyle because they supposedly hav the same G.I. as pure maltose.

Doctor Jennie Brand-Miller, Professor of Human Nutrition in the Human Nutrition Unit, School of Molecular and Microbial Biosciences at the University of Sydney, Australia has concluded in her studies that beer has little measurable carbohydrates, and as a result, registers zero on the glycemic index. In actually, wine and liquor also register zero. The doctor’s research has been supported by dozens of studies, including some from the Harvard University’s School of Public Health. Doctor Brand-Miller, who is also the President of the Nutrition Society of Australia, has written extensively about this intriuging form of measurement for blood glucose levels. Her latest book on the subject is titled The New Glucose Revolution.

Q. Will my weight loss stall if I drink?

A. Honestly…yes. Alcohol is utilized by your body before fat, protein or carbohydrates. Of course, while you’re burning alcohol, you are in a temporary stall, especially important if you’re counting carbs. Nothing else will be utilized by your body for fuel. Keep in mind however, that 1-ounce of alcohol will be burned off in 1 to 2 hours. A 12-ounce beer equals the alcoholic strength of 5-ounces of wine equals 1 1/2 ounces of booze. Two drinks, therefore, will slow down your weight loss for 2 to 4 hours—to me, an insignificant amount of time to really worry about. You make your own choice. Pick up a copy of  Does My BUTT Look BIG In This BEER? Nutritional Values For 2,000 Worldwide Beers and use some good old common sense in chosing a beer. Remember; there are no bad beers, just beer drinkers who make bad choices.

Q. Does wine differ from beer in terms of carbs or calories?

A. It depends. There are literally thousands of brands of beer and wine, and as you’ve seen in the nutritional list of 2,000 worldwide beers, carbohydrates and calories in these products vary. What might be surprising to many is that, ounce for ounce, the nutritional values for beer and wine are remarkably similar. The total carbohydrate and calorie counts depend on what constitutes an “average” serving. For beer, that is 12-ounces—for wine, 5 ounces. Ounce for ounce, the carb count for beer and wine is very similar.

Moderation, not deprivation.