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Recent research from the University of Milano-Bicocca

One of the oldest and most widely consumed alcoholic drinks worldwide is beer. While the distinct, bitter flavour of the hops used to flavour beer is loved and despised by different people, recent research from the University of Milano-Bicocca has found that particularly "hoppy" brews may have surprising health advantages. The specialists found that chemicals derived from hop flowers can prevent amyloid beta protein clumping in laboratory dishes. Amyloid beta proteins are linked to Alzheimer's disease (AD), a crippling neurodegenerative disease that affects older adults and is characterised by memory loss and personality changes.

The fact that there is a long lag—often years—between the start of the underlying metabolic processes and the emergence of symptoms of AD contributes to its treatment challenges. Preventive measures and therapies that can intervene before symptoms arise are thus of increasing scientific interest since permanent harm to the neural system can occur before a person even understands that they could have the condition.

One of these tactics entails the use of so-called "nutraceuticals," or foods with specific medical capabilities, like, as the current study contends, the hop blossoms used to flavour beers. Using techniques akin to those used in brewing, the researchers produced and examined extracts of four popular hop types. According to their investigations, these extracts possessed anti-oxidant qualities and could stop the clumping of amyloid beta proteins in human nerve cells. The Tettnang hop, which is a common ingredient in lagers and mild ales, produced the most effective extract.

The fraction with the highest concentration of polyphenols showed the strongest antibacterial and aggregation-inhibiting activity when the researchers divided this extract into fractions. It also encouraged processes that let the body get rid of misfolded, neurotoxic proteins. Using a C to test the extract. The researchers discovered that it shielded the worms from AD-related paralysis, however this impact was not very noticeable. 

Nevertheless, these results imply that hop chemicals might form the basis for the creation of nutraceuticals that slow the progression of Alzheimer's disease.

Our findings demonstrate that hop is a source of bioactive compounds with synergistic and multitarget efficacy against the initial AD-related events. Therefore, we may consider using it to create nutraceuticals that can help prevent this pathology, wrote the authors.

The research is presented in the ACS Chemical Neuroscience journal.

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