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Is a glass of red wine good for your heart?
Once study flaws are corrected, light drinkers show no advantage; genetic studies show no heart protection.
What you hear: “A glass of red wine a day is good for your heart.”
What the studies found
Pooling 107 cohort studies of about 4.8 million people and correcting for flaws such as counting ex-drinkers as non-drinkers, low-volume drinkers (up to about 2 drinks a day) had no significantly lower death rate than lifelong non-drinkers (relative risk 0.93, not significant). A genetic study of 371,463 UK adults found the apparent heart benefit of light drinking faded after accounting for healthier lifestyles, and genetically higher drinking went with more high blood pressure and coronary disease. Both are observational, but the genetic method is designed to get closer to cause. Neither study looked at red wine separately, and no trial has tested wine against heart attacks.
Take care: Genetic analysis linked drinking of all amounts to higher heart risk, rising sharply at heavier intake, and risk of death rose clearly from about 3 drinks a day.
What you could do
If you enjoy wine, keep it light, but do not start drinking for your heart.
See it in the habit library, with what it means for your own longevity score.
Not medical advice. General information from published studies, not a diagnosis or a treatment plan. Talk with your doctor before starting a supplement or changing a medicine, especially if you are pregnant, take other medicines or have a health condition.
How we judged it
Doesn't hold up: Good studies looked and found no benefit, or the claim is plainly false. We judge the claim as it is usually said online, not the habit itself. Trials assign people at random, so they can show cause; observed studies follow people and show a link, not proof. Last checked: October 2026.
The studies, in their own words
- Zhao et al. JAMA Netw Open 2023
found no significantly reduced risk of all-cause mortality among occasional (>0 to <1.3 g of ethanol per day; relative risk [RR], 0.96 ...) or low-volume drinkers (1.3-24.0 g per day; RR, 0.93; P = .07) compared with lifetime nondrinkers.
- Biddinger et al. JAMA Netw Open 2022
Genetic epidemiology suggested that alcohol consumption of all amounts was associated with increased cardiovascular risk
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