Italiano
Beer Belly: is that a thing?
That abdominal swelling, to which we sometimes give romantic names such as love handles or midlife spread, is it really due to the brew?
Hold on to your seat: the answer is no!
A meta-analysis, i.e. clinical-statistical research that combines data from multiple studies, gave us this disconcerting result.
Or rather, it resulted in no statistical correlation between the increase in abdominal fat and beer intake.
The research, entitled “Is beer consumption related to measures of abdominal and general obesity? A systematic review and meta-analysis”, also confirmed
the most observational data pointed towards a positive association or no association between beer intake and waist circumference or waist-to-hip ratio in men, whereas results for women were inconsistent.
Yes, because the beer belly is more a thing for men…
Anatomically, Women have more subcutaneous fat than men, so those extra fat calories tend to be deposited first in some other parts (as such as arms, thighs, buttocks ).
On the other hand, men have less subcutaneous fat, their fat goes (for the most part) straight in their bellies!
The available data provide inadequate scientific evidence to assess whether beer intake at moderate levels (<500 mL/day) is associated with general or abdominal obesity. Higher intake, however, may be positively associated with abdominal obesity.
So? Is it beer’s fault? No.
At least, is the “excess” to be blamed, be it of beer or any other drink (alcoholic or not), or even food.
The cause of the spare tire is the excess of calories, certainly not the beer bubbles that “inflate” the stomach like a child’s balloon.
And we tend to forget easily that alcohol has quite a few calories.
Furthermore, “empty” calories, without any nutritional substance, which are processed by the liver even before the calories brought by food (and the excess ones are deposited in our “love handles”).
Having said that, “moderation” is the key.
Enjoy your (few) pints and… if you work in catering and/or hospitality industry and you are interested in my #copywriting and/or #contentwriting services, just DM me!
