Swill your vitamins

Beer may protect your heart. Henk Hendriks and colleagues at the TNO
Nutrition and Food Research Institute in Zeist, the Netherlands, measured
vitamin B₆ in the blood of 11 men who spent successive three-week
periods drinking water, red wine, Dutch gin (genever) or lager with meals. Beer
contains B₆, and boosted the men’s B₆ levels by 30 per cent.
But surprisingly, wine and gin, which contain none, boosted B₆ by 15
per cent. Moderate alcohol consumption helps prevent heart disease, and Hendriks
suggests it might be through raising levels of B₆ (The Lancet, vol 355,…