SAVED BY THE SUDS? BEER MAY STAVE OFF CANCER, STUDY SHOWS.

Byline: Amy Norton Medical Tribune News Service

Chasing a burger with a beer may wreck the waistline, but a new study suggests that it also might fight the effects of suspected cancer-causing compounds produced while certain foods cook.

Japanese researchers said there's something about beer that prevents the action of several types of HAs, or heterocyclic amines, a group of substances that form when proteins cook at high temperatures. In tests, the researchers failed to identify the protective ingredient, but they speculated that it could be the hops.

HAs have been shown to promote cancerous tumors in animals and are suspected of contributing to cancer in humans. Recently, researchers at the University of South Carolina in Columbia reported that eating very well-done meat might be linked to increased breast cancer risk.

To test whether alcohol can battle these HA mutagens, the Japanese team, led by Sakae Arimoto-Kobayashi of Okayama University in Tsushima, examined several components found in beer and other alcoholic beverages. Nearly all brews tested - 24 from 11 countries, including the United States - did the job against several HAs. Out of lagers, stouts and ales, only one lager and a nonalcoholic beer showed no effect on the compounds, the team reported in this month's issue of the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry.

Red and white wines, brandy and Japanese sake showed similar abilities against HA mutagens, but beer went one step further. In mice given one type of HA, beer components decreased genetic alterations in the liver - alterations that the researchers called ``biomarkers'' for a compound's cancer-causing ability.

Alcohol itself, however, was not the key, the researchers noted. Instead, they speculated, the plant-derived hops that give beer its bitterness could be responsible. In the experiments, extractions of hops inhibited the effects of one HA type.

``There may very well be something there,'' said one food-science expert. John Milner, head of the nutrition department at Penn State University in State College, Pa., agreed with the researchers' proposal that the ``something'' could be hops.

Moderate alcohol consumption has of late been shown to be a fairly healthy practice, and Milner likened beer's possible cancer-fighting abilities to evidence of wine's protective effects against heart disease. Still, he cautioned, this research shows only that some alcoholic drinks may provide some benefits.

``Overindulgence in alcohol,'' he said, ``may do far more harm than good.''