Bye-Bye Beer Belly, Thanks Yakima Hops!

Yakima Valley hops are crucial to making some really great beer and while beer is known for a lot of things, making people healthier generally isn’t one of them! But not so fast oh yea of big "beer belly" and little faith!

Scientists now say there's a compound in beer that could actually help with weight loss. Hey, we’ll all drink to that!

That compound is called xanthohumol and is a flavonoid naturally found in hops. Tests on lab animals and cell cultures have shown the stuff can lower cholesterol and even blood-sugar levels. Unfortunately, a pint of beer contains only 0.757 milligrams of xanthohumol, so to derive any benefits you'd have to drink 3,500 pints of beer per day. Hey, we’ll all drink to that…no wait, that’s impossible so now what?

Cue the researchers from Oregon State University who say, in the future, it's possible a concentrated amount of xanthohumol could be packed into a supplement and taken once a day. This would be a low-cost and effective treatment for metabolic syndrome, or the set of factors that increase your risk of heart disease, diabetes, stroke, and other health problems.   Hey, we’ll all drink to that! (Fox)