A bottle of wine a week, combined with a Mediterranean diet, could be as good as statins for heart health, academics have suggested.
While some research has shown wine can benefit heart health, other studies have suggested that too much can be damaging.
And most studies examining the health ties to wine have relied on people self-reporting how much alcohol they drink, which may be “prone to measurement errors”, researchers said.
So academics from set out to examine an “objective” marker of wine consumption in urine by looking for levels of a chemical called tartaric acid.
They used data from a study measuring the impacts of a Mediterranean diet – a diet high in olive oil, vegetables, fruit, nuts and fish, and low in sweet or processed food and drink – on health among older adults from a Mediterranean population at a high risk of heart disease.
As well as completing questionnaires on their food and drink consumption, the 1,232 people involved in the research also provided urine samples at the start of the study and again one year later.
After four or five years of follow up, there were 685 cases of heart disease, including heart attack, stroke or death from cardiovascular disease.
Compared with people who drank less than one glass of wine a month, people who drank three to 12 glasses of wine each month had a 38% lower risk of heart disease, according to the study, which has been published in the European Heart Journal.
And those who drank between 12 and 35 glasses of wine each month had a 50% lower risk.
But drinking more than this saw the heart health benefits diminish, they found.
“Light to moderate wine consumption, measured through an objective biomarker (tartaric acid), was prospectively associated with lower CVD (cardiovascular disease) rate in a Mediterranean population at high cardiovascular risk,” they said.
Study lead, Professor Ramon Estruch, from the University of Barcelona, said: “By measuring tartaric acid in the urine, alongside food and drink questionnaires, we have been able to make a more accurate measurement of wine consumption.
“We have found a much greater protective effect of wine than that observed in other studies. A reduction in risk of 50% is much higher than can be achieved with some drugs, such as statins.
“This study examines the importance of moderate wine consumption within a healthy dietary pattern, such as the Mediterranean diet.
“Until now, we believed that 20% of the effects of the Mediterranean diet could be attributed to moderate wine consumption, however, in light of these results, the effect may be even greater.
“The participants in our study were older people at high risk of cardiovascular disease living in a Mediterranean country, so the results may not apply to other populations.
“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.
“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.”
Commenting on the study, Professor Paul Leeson, consultant cardiologist and professor of cardiovascular medicine at the University of Oxford, said: “People often say that ‘wine is good for the heart’ but we also know too much wine is ‘not good for the heart’.
“So how do we judge what the right amount might be? Existing research has often relied on studying what people report they drink and, for lots of reasons, self-reported wine consumption may not be accurate.
“The major strength of this study is that they have used a chemical measure in the urine to quantify how much wine was being consumed, rather than what someone says they are drinking.
“The study shows that drinking somewhere between three and, at most, 35 glasses of wine a month was associated with a reduction in risk. Anything over this amount and the benefit disappeared.
“So, no more than a bottle of wine a week, or, at most, 10 units of alcohol.
“Another important thing to remember is that the study still just reports an association – there may be other things that people who consume this amount of wine did in the study that helped reduce their risk.
“For one thing, the study was performed in people who were also eating a heart-healthy diet. Maybe the health advantages of a glass of wine are only seen when being drunk alongside a plate of Mediterranean food?”
