November 13, 2024 – You’ve heard of food and wine pairings. But what about food and beer pairings? Apparently they are not in very good health.

People whose choice of alcoholic the drink is exclusively beer and they tend to have a particularly poor diet. They are also more likely to be less physically active, smoke cigarettes and have low income.

This is what a new study published in the journal reveals Nutrients and presented this weekend at the annual conference called The Liver Meeting, hosted by the American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases.

For the study, researchers analyzed data from 1,900 American adults who shared their alcohol consumption habits and dietary information. Of these, 39% drank only beer, 22% reported drinking only wine, 18% reported drinking only alcohol, and 21% reported drinking multiple types of alcohol.

For dietThe researchers compared people’s eating habits to a measure of whether they followed a federally recommended diet. The measuring tool is called the Healthy Eating Indexwhich is based on a perfect score of 100 and a healthy eating score of 80. Neither group performed well, but beer drinkers scored the worst, with a 49. Wine drinkers did averaged a score of 55, while alcohol-only drinkers and combination drinkers scored 53.

Previous research has linked a poor diet to an increased risk of liver problems. Chronic liver diseasewhich includes the condition called cirrhosisis increasing in the United States and affects approximately 4.5 million people (nearly 2 in 100 adults). It’s the 10th^th main cause of death, and this disease is more diagnosed in young people.

“Alcohol overuse is the leading cause of cirrhosis in the United States, and fatty liver disease associated with metabolic dysfunction (MASLD) is rapidly increasing,” said lead study author Madeline Novack, MD, chief resident of the internal medicine residency program at the Tulane School of Medicine. in a press release. “Both types of liver disease often coexist, and lifestyle changes are key to managing and preventing these conditions, starting with understanding the link between alcohol consumption and poor diet. »

The study had some important limitations, the authors noted, including that the data was collected from 2017 to March 2020 and that drinking habits may have changed since the study began. pandemic. They also noted that cultural impacts on diet and alcohol consumption could not be completely controlled, even if the data were considered nationally representative based on many demographic factors.