I was recently pointed to the harmful effects of drinking beer. A subsequent investigation has revealed a number of studies on the relation between beer consumption and high levels of estrogen (the female hormone), in particular so-called phytoestrogens.
One study by the Institute of Analytical Chemistry, University of Vienna, conducted in 2001 has concluded that "...the human health hazard of beer drinking originating from compounds activity on the estrogen receptor alpha is negligible"
Wikipedia article on phytoestrogens has a lot of aggregated information and links to the sources. In particular it turns out that many common foods contain them, namely "...soy beans, tofu, tempeh, soy beverages, linseed (flax), sesame seeds, wheat, berries, oats, barley, dried beans, lentils, rice, alfalfa, mung beans, apples, carrots, wheat germ, ricebran, soy linseed bread, ginseng, bourbon and beer[13] fennel and anise [14] " Also, it disspells the popular myth on the internet about the men drinking beer turning into women in this paragraph:
"Because phytoestrogens may mimic endogenous estrogens[15],
there has been some unsubstantiated speculation that this similarity
and the consumption of high quantities of phytoestrogens may result in
hormonal imbalances and effects associated with excess estrogen levels.
However the scientific studies which have been done do not support
these concerns. The main reason why the dietary consumption of
phytoestrogens is not considered a risk factor is that phytoestrogens
do not appear to bioaccumulate.[16]"
Googling beer and estrogen may uncover a miriad of forum posts and anecdotes on the problem, but I don't consider those to be trustworthy. After all, if we google "beer is bad" we get about 1000 results, but "beer is good", by no match, returns 183000 results 
1. I looked at the list of
1. I looked at the list of those foods you listed there. Let me tell you something -- I do not eat those even remotely as much as drinking beer. In fact, I didn't even hear about 1/4 of those names until recently, and I was lucky not to eat about 1/3 of the rest until reaching at least a puberty age. And even after that, those are still a minor part of the diet.
2. Beer, on top of everything, contains alcohol. Now you have a chance to start a new thread on negligibly small harm done by that. People may think that a story like This One is funny. But some may in fact consider it as quite a sad one. Because those things listed there do happen (and the list may be significantly extended). What makes it funny is an attempt to link that to a regular female behavior. And I totally agree that it makes a very good joke. As for the sake of the beer consumption argument this joke is a deception. It takes a problem and makes fun of how this problem is similar to something else. Again, it is a good joke.
3. Goggling the word "bad" yields 79,000,000 while "good" returns 190,000,000, hence the difference in pairwise co-occurrences.
Are you saying you hardly
Are you saying you hardly eat oats, wheat, barley and rice? C'mon man, what do you eat then? And what about apples and carrots? Give me a break!
aha! now you're thinking in
aha! now you're thinking in a Bayesian sense!
))
Its strange, "my" Google
Its strange, "my" Google turned out 51000 for "beer is bad" and 166000 for "beer is good",
1280000000 for "bad" and 1880000000 for "good"....
Click on the links above,
Click on the links above, you're doing something wrong. Better post a URL to your search query here!
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