And if you still need another reason to drink beer ··

SCIENTISTS FIND BEER MAY HELP FIGHT CANCER Scientists in Japan have discovered that chemicals in beer can help fight off cancer. Researchers from Okayama University in western Japan fed a cancer-causing chemical to genes of the salmonella bacteria, which usually leads the genes to mutate as the first stage of developing cancer. The team freeze-dried beer to separate ingredients and gave each of them to the salmonella genes, finding that at least six of the materials prevented the genes from mutating.

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·.but inquiring minds want to know which ingredients are the effective ones. Is it the hops? the yeast? the malt (or some adjunct)? the water? Or is it some arcane interaction among all of the above. My bet's on the last one·. beer, in all it's glorious totality· another case where the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. But then again, maybe not.

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