Beer: the health and beauty benefits

As the old saying goes, pouring a beer over your head a day leaves your hair voluptuous, smooth and shiny. Something to do with the proteins and vitamin B naturally present in the drink, apparently.Glossy-maned Catherine Zeta Jones has sworn by the trick for years, though admits the practice leaves her head smelling like a brewery. Now, though, an American company has launched a range of beer-based haircare products which it claims leaves no trace of a hoppy odour.Bröö offers three sets of shampoo and conditioner which use beer as their main ingredient: Pale Ale (for volume), IPA (for smoothness) and Porter (for Hydration).Rejoice, for gone are the days when we had to massage a pint of Greene King into our hair, Herbal Essences-style, in our quest for the perfect barnet. But what other health and beauty benefits can we get from the drink?1. Improve your skin‘Beer Spas’ have been popping up in Austria, Germany and the Czech Republic, where guests are invited to bathe in dark lager. “Beer is very good for the skin, because of the vitamins and the yeast,” the owner of one such spa told The New York Times. “It’s cleansing and drying.”The spas also offer beer-based facials, made from ground hops, malt, honey and cream cheese.2. Relax your feetIf you can’t afford to go full lager-Cleopatra, resting your feet in a large bowl of beer has also been recommended as a way to soothe them. Advantages: it’s cold and carbonated. Disadvantages: potentially sticky.3. Reduce your risk of kidney stonesA 1998 Finnish study found that men reduced their risk of developing kidney stones by 40 per cent with one bottle of beer a day. Researchers suggested the hops in the beer strengthened calcium in the bones, preventing it from developing as stones in the kidneys.4. Massage yourselfMassage therapists suggest rolling a can of beer underfoot, or placing one between your shoulder blades, leaning against a wall and rolling it from side-to-side. “The pressure loosens up muscle tissue and encourages blood flow to the area,” one claims. Teetotalers could try the same thing with a can of Fanta.5. Improve your sightA lager or stout a day can stop cataracts from forming, according to research by Canadian scientists, because of antioxidants in the drink. But three or more beers a day were found to have the opposite effect.6. Improve your confidenceAnd finally, even drinking non-alcoholic beer has been found to improve your confidence. In one study, researchers told some participants they would be drinking alcoholic beer, but gave half of them a non-alcoholic drink, while others had nothing to drink at all. Participants who were told they had drunk beer consistently rated themselves as funnier, smarter and better-looking during their talk - whether they had had the alcoholic version or not.(telegraph.co.uk)Bakudaily.az