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Heart beat: Make it a bean burger with that beer

Heart beat

Make it a bean burger with that beer

For many people, the recipe for a successful summer cookout includes a sizzling burger and an ice-cold beer. Routinely combining red meat and alcohol, though, may not be so good for your heart. Instead, try a bean burger.

The difference has to do with the kind of iron in meat (heme iron), which may contribute to heart disease, and zinc, which may fight it.

In a 15-year study of more than 34,000 older women, researchers found that overall iron intake wasn’t linked with deaths from heart disease and stroke. But among women who averaged an alcoholic drink a day, those who ate the most heme iron had twice the risk of dying of cardiovascular disease compared to women who ate the least. The risk was even higher for heavier drinkers. The results were published in the April 2005 American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.

Inside the body, iron is normally wrapped up in hemoglobin and other proteins. The researchers postulate that alcohol triggers the release of iron into the bloodstream. Free iron can help kick off an early step of atherosclerosis — oxidizing LDL (bad) cholesterol — and cause other cellular damage.

Women who drank regularly but got plenty of zinc seemed to gain some protection against dying of cardiovascular disease. Zinc is found in fortified cereals, beans, nuts, and meat. It can act as an antioxidant, in essence working against free iron and its ilk.

Last updated:	August 21, 2006