I know most of you read about this on the beer blogs a few months back; but you may not have heard the whole story. It read that beer can increase the risk of developing psoriasis in women compared to other alcoholic beverages. It is true that drinking any alcoholic beverage can increase one's risk of developing psoriasis. The article that appeared in the August 2010 issue of Archives of Dermatology was the first article to really break the information down about which alcoholic beverages were the real culprits. The results are not good for craft beer drinkers.

The researchers found that women who drank 5 more nonlight beers a week had a greater risk of developing psoriasis - about 1.8 times higher. And overall, women who drank more than 2.3 alcoholic beverages a week were also at risk. Nonlight beer was the only alcoholic beverage that specifically increased the risk for psoriasis.

Since only nonlight beer increased the risk, it was thought that ingredients unique to nonlight beer might be the cause. The finger pointed directly at barley. We all know that good craft beer uses more barley than light beer. We also know that barley contains a lot of gluten and is not kind to people with celiac disease and other gluten-sensitivities. The researchers noted that people with psoriasis may have "latent-gluten sensitivity". Gluten-free diets can sometimes lead to improved symptoms for patients with psoriasis.

So there you have it; only people with psoriasis should reduce their consumption of craft beer. If need be they could drink -shutter- light beer. On our side they also found that alcohol abstainers had a higher body mass index (BMI) and were less physically active. That is a polite was of saying fat and lazy.