Beer: It Does a Body Good

From a Gannett story via The Arizona Republic:

A flurry of independent research since those initial reports on red wine's health benefits surfaced a dozen years ago finds that alcohol in general provides a number of health benefits when consumed in moderation, and that beer might be the healthiest beverage of them all. As brewer/patriot Thomas Jefferson said a couple hundred years ago, "Beer, if drank in moderation, softens the temper, cheers the spirit, and promotes health."

"The wine people have made a very impressive marketing ploy. I think it's a snow job," says Dr. Norman Kaplan, a hypertension specialist at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas. "Be that as it may, most people are convinced if you are going to get any benefit, it's going to be from red wine."

Kaplan became something of a national media star last summer when he took the lead in presenting a report on a Texas Southwestern study on the health benefits of moderate beer consumption.

"It got a lot of publicity at the time," he says. "Since that time, there have been other studies that have documented the relative benefit of beer over other types of alcohol."