A new study at Oregon State University appears to show that hops is helpful in both preventing prostate cancer and also enlarging your prostate. According to Emily Ho, a professor and researcher at Oregon State’s Linus Pauling Institute, “xanthohumol, a compound found in hops, inhibits NF-kappaB protein in cells along the surface of the prostate gland.” The bad news — or good, depending how you look at it — is you’ll have to drink seventeen 12-oz. beers to get the amount of xanthohumol that the study showed to be beneficial in fighting prostate problems.

Somebody call Ralph at HopUnion. Perhaps they can create a hop variety that’s packed with more xanthohumol. Actually a German brewer, Weihenstephan, is making a beer with ten times the normal amounts of xanthohumol but it is not known if it will actually transmit the health benefits in liquid form.

Xanthohumol was discovered almost one hundred years ago in hops, but it’s health benefits were not realized until the last decade when researchers began examining flavonoid compounds.

German beers with Xanthohumol.