For it’s beer, beer, beer… I’m sure you know the rest of the song if you’ve ever served in the armed forces or had a relative who has. It’s called, I think, “The Quartermaster’s Store” … Anyway, I’m feeling jolly enough to break into song after reading in this morning’s Salon. com that beer is good for diabetes. I could’ve told them that!  I know I always feel a lot better after a glass or two, diabetes notwithstanding.

But it’s always nice to have scientific confirmation.

And, according to an article Salon reprinted from a publication called Pacific Standard, some hard working scientists have come up with the confirmation we were waiting for.

According to the report by Joel Smith, the University of Washington has just completed a study on the humulones in beer (I bet you didn’t even know beer had humulones) and the researchers conclude that “moderate beer drinking can have positive health effects — on diabetes, forms of cancer, inflammation, even weight loss.”

So you-all can quit making fun of my beer belly. It’s a sign of good health apparently.

For years – make that decades – I’ve had to endure the nagging of well-meaning loved ones (who shall be nameless as they will probably read this blog) who insist diabetics should stay away from alcoholic beverages.

And what do we find out as modern science progresses? That beer is good for what ails us.

Wine, too.

The purple stuff in red wine has been shown to do wonders for our health… well, maybe not wonders but something, anyway. Here’s a gem I found on the web:

Research on mice given resveratrol (an antioxidant in wine) suggests that it might help protect them from obesity and diabetes, both of which are strong risk factors for heart disease.

Even St. Paul knew wine was good for us. He advised Timothy in one of those epistles of his to “take a little wine for thy stomach’s sake.”

Of course, spoilsports like Julius, my teetotaling golf partner, have to remind us that we could get resveratrol – and the other good parts of the wine – by drinking grape juice, which can be just as purple. But I’m sure he wouldn’t suggest we eat hops to get the benefit of the humulones in beer.

No, beer is the best source of those salutary humulones, as far as I’m concerned.

But I guess I’ll have to stay off the hard stuff until scientists discover the benefits we could derive from a jigger of Bushmill’s. I’m sure there must be something beneficial in the stuff; it has kept my brother-in-law Wendell going strong (like Johnny Walker) well into his eighties.

Of course, he isn’t diabetic. He’s about the only one in this family who isn’t…

You think the Bushmill’s might be why?

Click here for the report on beer.

Click here for benefits of drinking beer

Click here for wine’s benefits.