Hops healing power could craft new meds

We’ve all used the hops in a fresh brewed craft beer to heal the emotional wounds and trials at the end of the day. Now researchers are saying that the configuration of humulones derived from hops could lead to new medicines to treat diabetes, some types of cancers and other ailments.

“Excessive beer consumption cannot be recommended to propagate good health, but it has been demonstrated that isolated humulones and their derivatives can be prescribed with documented health benefits,” wrote Werner Kaminsky, a University of Washington research associate professor of chemistry and lead author of “Absolute Configuration of Beer′s Bitter Compounds,” an article recently published in Angewandte Chemie International Edition. “Now that the stereochemistry for these compounds has been confirmed and methods have been developed to substantiate the configuration of new entities in this series, future work on their biological activities should be greatly accelerated.”

Kaminsky and his team used X-ray analysis to determine the humulones configuration. Though the findings are exciting for the medical community, it will still take some time to determine how these new findings could impact pharmaceutical development. For the chemists turned craft brewers, check out the full article for all the scientific details and findings.