"Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy." - Benjamin Franklin.

Happy St. Patricks Day everyone! As we all know by now, this is a very important national holiday honoring St. Patrick, the man believed to have driven all the snakes out of Ireland, and is in no way an excuse to drink copious amounts of beer. Green beer. Lots and lots and lots of green beer.

People who actually worry about these things have suspected that drinking alcohol was good for your heart. Just how good and why it was beneficial, well, they weren't sure. To date, over sixty studies throughout the world have investigated in detail if drinking alcohol did indeed lead to more healthy hearts... see, everyone is looking for an excuse for partying, don't feel so guilty.

Dutch researchers in 2000 found evidence to counter the widely held belief that red wine was better for the heart than beer. The Dutch study, led by Dr. Henk Hendriks of the TNO Nutrition and Food Research Institute, studied 11 healthy men who drank four glasses of either beer, red wine, spirits or water with dinner for three months. They switched beverages every three weeks. Despite the small number of subjects in the study, the results were striking.

The men showed a 30 percent increase in vitamin B6 in their blood plasma after three weeks on beer. Drinkers of red wine and Dutch gin received only one-half the increase in the vitamin. B6 prevents the body from building up high levels of homocysteine, a chemical linked to an increased risk of heart disease. Homocysteine levels did not increase in the beer drinkers, but rose for those who drank wine or spirits

A somewhat similar study in Denmark also addressed the "red wine v. beer is better for your heart" debate. The Danish Brewers Association reported that beer works as well as wine in preventing heart disease. "It cannot be proved that there is any health advantage to drinking red wine, for example, rather than beer," according to the study by the Institute of Epidemiology and Social Medicine at the University of Muenster. "Studies indicate that light to moderate alcohol consumption from beer, wine or spirits is associated with a reduction in all-cause mortality, owing primarily to a decreased risk of coronary heart disease."
(More info is at www.allaboutbeer.com)



So there you have it. Drink that green beer... but not too much that you miss class tonight.