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

So said Benjamin Franklin. Happy? Certainly. But healthy as well? Maybe.

The beneficial effects of drinking alcohol have been guessed at from the earliest days of humankind. When the nomadic hunter-gatherers of millennia ago began to settle down as farmers, they knew nothing about sanitation and maintaining a clean water supply. Water-borne diseases must have been widespread. But these same people may have realized empirically that if they drank their fermented beverages--beer and wine--illnesses were not as common. Scientists now know that the boiling of water in brewing, the alcohol present in both beer and wine and the natural acidity in both drinks will either kill or reduce the growth of illness-forming bacteria. Click here to view the entire article.