A little wine every day can protect your heart health, a new study suggests.

People who drank half to one glass of wine a day had a 50% lower risk of heart attack, stroke or heart disease, compared to wine teetotalers, researchers reported Dec. 18 in the European Heart Journal.

Even light drinking – one glass a week, or less than half a glass a day – reduced heart risk by 38%, results showed.

However, these benefits evaporated in people who had more than one glass of wine a day.

"We have found a much greater protective effect of wine than that observed in other studies," said senior researcher Dr. Ramon Estruch, a professor with the University of Barcelona.

"A reduction in risk of 50% is much higher than can be achieved with some drugs, such as statins," Estruch added in a journal news release.

These more potent protections were uncovered because this study used a more precise method of measuring people's wine intake, the release explained.

Prior studies rely on people reporting how much wine they drink, Estruch said. Such memories might be mistaken, or people might fib because they are embarrassed about their wine drinking.

But this study, part of a larger Spanish research project investigating the benefits of the Mediterranean diet, tracked people's wine intake by measuring the amount of tartaric acid in their urine.

Tartaric acid is a chemical naturally found in grapes and grape products like wine. It is excreted in urine, and can be measured to show if someone has consumed wine or grapes within the past five to six days.

For this study, researchers analyzed data from more than 1,200 people. During as much as five years of follow-up, there were 685 cases of heart attack, stroke, and heart disease.

In people at high risk of heart disease following a Mediterranean diet, light-to-moderate wine drinking reduced heart risk by 50%, results show.

"Until now, we believed that 20% of the effects of the Mediterranean diet could be attributed to moderate wine consumption," Estruch said. "However, in light of these results, the effect may be even greater."

Estruch also noted because these participants were older people at high risk of heart disease living in Spain, the study's results might not apply to other people.

"Another key question is at what age moderate wine consumption could be considered 'acceptable.' Recent studies indicate that the protective effects of wine consumption are observed starting from the age of 35 to 40," Estruch said.

"It is also important to note that moderate consumption for women should always be half that of men, and it should be consumed with meals."

This study could have "far-reaching" implications for public health recommendations regarding wine consumption, according to an editorial accompanying the study.

"The use of an objective biomarker such as urinary tartaric acid represents a significant methodological advancement in alcohol research," wrote the editorial group led by Dr. Giovanni de Gaetano, head of epidemiology and prevention for the IRCCS NEUROMED Department of Epidemiology and Prevention in Pozzilli, Italy.

"It offers a more accurate and reliable measure of wine consumption, which could help resolve some of the ongoing debates about the health effects of alcohol," the editorial added.

More information

The Cleveland Clinic has more on the heart benefits of wine.

SOURCE: European Society of Cardiology, news release, Dec. 18, 2024