Your Brain Loves Beer

New research has found that drinking beer releases pleasure chemicals in the brain and makes you happy. Makes sense, pleasure chemicals (beer) go in your mouth and seconds later glands in your brain produce more pleasure chemicals (dopamine); and in fact it has been known for awhile that when you get drunk you feel pretty good (until you don't, when you're no longer drunk). This new research found that just the first sips of a beer can lead to the dopamine release.

When the men tasted the beer, their brains released much higher levels of dopamine within minutes, compared to when the same test was conducted on the subjects at other times with both water and Gatorade.

This finding is important for describing why some folks are more prone to alcoholism than others. The dopamine response is highest is those with a family history of alcohol abuse and addiction. Differing physiological response to beer may help explain why it is harder from some people to stick with sobriety. I found it weird that the study singled out men. Also, there was no examination of the effect of different tasting beers. So no explanation for what might explain how DSBCer's come to discover their affinities. Still, how do I get involved with this research?