In an article, Food and Wine said researchers are synthetically reproducing anti-bacterial, anti-inflammatory and anti-Cancer compounds found in a hop. Potentially, they say, it can cure cancer.
Natural News, a health blog, had already discussed the potential of hops. Hops are one of the ingredients found in beer.
"The hops are used in brewing beer to give it a bitter taste, and that bitter taste comes from humulone, or humulone or a Luulic acid. But apparently it's the hops after brewing, not just the plant itself, that bring the minor health benefits of beer.". Flowers from hops or Humulus lupulus are also known flavoring and ingredient of beer. There were earlier studies suggesting that drinking beer might cure cancer, because of hops in beer.
Food and Wine magazine said some good properties of hops were discovered when they used it to preserve beer and to balance out the bitterness in beer. Now scientist and researchers are more interested in hops plant and its medicinal capabilities. "It turns out they are anti-bacterial, anti-inflammatory, and may be part of the solution to fighting cancer."
Currently, a number of studies are being conducted if it's possible to extract the medicinal benefits of hops to turn it into a cure for the diseases. "Several other international studies have discovered other medicinal possibilities with humulone. A 1995 study using mice from the College of Pharmacy, Nihon University, in Chiba, Japan determined that humulone had anti-cancer properties."
During the American Chemical Society in San Diego, Food and Wine reported, that Kristopher Waynant of the University of Idaho is doing an in-depth study on hops. He said, "Being able to synthesize and have available precise analytical standards of these molecules would be beneficial to both brewers and medicinal biologists as reference materials.
WebMd described other known benefits of hops "it is used for anxiety, inability to insomnia and other sleep disorders, restlessness, tension, excitability, attention deficit-hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), nervousness, and irritability. It is also used to improve appetite, increase urine flow, start the flow of breast milk, as a bitter tonic, and for indigestion. Other uses include prostate cancer, breast cancer, ovarian cancer, high cholesterol, tuberculosis, bladder infections, intestinal cramps" and some other conditions.
Although Waynant said hops definitely have great potential, we should all wait until scientific testing has yielded results. The process of harvesting its medicinal benefits should be further developed as well. Harvesting hops' anti-inflammatory and other medicinal benefits by drinking too much beer is not the best cure for any disease anyway.
