It seems that beer—when taken in moderation—isn’t all that bad. According to The Daily Mail, a pint of your favorite alcoholic beverage may help lengthen your telomeres, the protective ends of chromosomal DNA, which normally shorten as a person ages or gets sick.

Testing approximately 6,000 yeast strains on genes, researchers from Tel Aviv University found that even a small amount of alcohol may help lengthen telomeres and protect them from premature fraying. Caffeine, on the other hand, may shorten them.

Despite this surprising discovery, researchers aren’t giving you a free pass to drink as much alcohol as you want. In fact, they believe that just a pint of beer once in a while may be all you need to help your telomeres stay healthy, so it's important that you drink in moderation.

(Photo by k.ivoutin via Flickr Creative Commons)