Instapundit calls this article "good news about booze."
Being a Mormon and a teetotaler, I find this a little disturbing. In ages past, a little alcohol was what one might call Mother Nature's safe drinking water solution. But the Word of Wisdom, a revelation received by Joseph Smith in 1833, is introduced as follows:

To be sent greeting; not by commandment or constraint, but by revelation and the word of wisdom, showing forth the order and will of God in the temporal salvation of all saints in the last days�


Given for a principle with promise, adapted to the capacity of the weak and the weakest of all saints, who are or can be called saints.


Behold, verily, thus saith the Lord unto you: In consequence of evils and designs which do and will exist in the hearts of conspiring men in the last days, I have warned you, and forewarn you, by giving unto you this word of wisdom by revelation�

This revelation admonishs total abstinence from alcoholic drinks, tobacco and hot drinks, which are limited to coffee and black tea. The LDS Church has never added colas or other caffeinated drinks, however. All members are expected to follow these rules and one cannot obtain a temple recommend, which is the approval to receive the highest ordinances of the church including marriage for time and eternity.

I first note that the article is somewhat ambiguous as to whether the medical research establishs alcohol itself or the various drinks that contain it as being beneficial. I know that wine contains anti-oxidants that can help keep the arteries healthy, but I don't know about beer or hard liquor. I wonder if any studies have ever been done on Everclear.

Next, I notice that the article emphasizes that the benefits extend only to moderate drinking, no more than two glasses of wine per day. Societies that show the benefit are quite intolerant of drunkenness. Part of the warning above is based on the evils and designs of conspiring men, men like those tobacco executives who testified under oath that they didn't believe tobacco was harmful. It is the nature of modern business and advertising to urge maximum consumption, the recent notes about drinking responsibly, notwithstanding. Most of these comments are along the lines of making sure you won't drive drunk, not telling you not to get drunk. Alcohol is a mind and mood altering drug. After a certain threshold, the user loses all judgment and self-control. And I needn't go into all the statistics about drunken driving, broken families and fetal alcohol syndrome. So, even though I have coronary artery disease, I also have some alcoholism in my ancestry, and I'm not interested in finding out whether I'm a candidate. Over all, I think that people should take little comfort in the health benefits of moderate drinking of, say, wine with dinner, unless they really live that way.