Drink Beer to Lose Weight?

Poor beer. It battles a longstanding bad rap that it's one of the most unhealthy, fattening alcoholic drinks around. It's even inspired an unflattering expression for the weight gain linked to it: the beer gut.

Determined to overhaul its image, an advocacy group for the beverage has waged war on beer bashers. The British consumer organization Campaign for Real Ale (CAMRA) is claiming a glass of of the brew a day can actually cut as many calories as a half-hour run.

CAMRA says switching wine with beer will reduce the bulge around your middle, not expand it, and that beer's bad reputation isn't warranted.

"For years, beer has been blighted by a reputation for being more fattening than other alcoholic drinks, when in reality the exact opposite is true," Charlie Bamforth, a professor and beer expert with CAMRA, told the Fox News wire service News Core.

Critics say that isn't the whole story.

"Weight is about calories. Beer has calories," New York University nutritionist and food studies expert Marion Nestle told AOL Health. "And there is some notion that the calories in alcohol might be metabolized in ways that especially put fat on in the proverbial beer bellies."

CAMRA, which is based in the U.K. and represents those in the beer industry across Europe, says that about 34 percent of men and 29 percent of women erroneously believe that beer has a higher calorie count than other drinks like wine and liquor.

"Because beer is the drink ... with the lowest average alcohol content, it is also lowest in calories," Bamforth said. "So for someone looking to lose weight, swapping their glass of wine for a beer every day would ... cut out more calories than are burned off during a typical 30-minute jog."

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The majority of calories in alcoholic beverages come from the alcohol content, he added.

"As a low-alcohol drink, beer can supplement a healthy lifestyle if consumed in a responsible manner," CAMRA Chief Executive Mike Benner told News Core.

In reality, says Nestle, there's nothing special about beer that helps keep off the pounds.

"Can you lose weight drinking beer? Of course you can if you aren't eating more calories than you are expending," she told AOL Health. "You can lose weight eating anything if you don't eat too much of it."