Wine and health
For most of the past thirty years, the message was simple and comforting: a daily glass of red wine was good for you, especially for your heart. That story has changed. Here is how the thinking shifted, and where the evidence stands now.
As far back as antiquity, physicians recommended wine to bring down fevers, clean wounds, and fortify the sick. For much of history it was also, quite practically, safer to drink than the available water. But ancient medicine also taught that the stars rode on turning crystal spheres, so a healthy caution is in order. The real question is what has been learned since — and, more recently, what has been un-learned.
How "a glass a day" became conventional wisdom
The modern idea that wine is health-giving took hold in the late twentieth century. Researchers noticed that some populations with wine-rich diets seemed to have lower rates of heart disease, a puzzle that became known as the "French paradox." Laboratory work pointed to plausible mechanisms: red wine contains antioxidant compounds such as resveratrol and other polyphenols, and moderate drinking appeared to raise HDL (the "good" cholesterol). From the 1970s onward, a large body of observational studies reported that moderate drinkers lived longer and had fewer heart attacks than people who did not drink at all. The picture seemed settled enough that a glass of red became something many people felt virtuous about.
Why the story changed
The turning point came when researchers looked harder at how those studies were built. The comparison group — the "non-drinkers" — turned out to be the problem. Many studies had lumped in people who had quit or cut down on drinking precisely because they were already ill or ageing. Counting these former drinkers as lifelong abstainers made the abstaining group look sicker than it really was, and made moderate drinkers look healthier by comparison. This flaw became known as the "abstainer" or "sick-quitter" bias.
When newer analyses corrected for it, the apparent benefit shrank or vanished. A 2023 systematic review in JAMA Network Open pooled 107 studies covering nearly 4.8 million people; once the abstainer bias was accounted for, the supposed protective effect of low and moderate drinking on death rates disappeared. Studies using a genetic method called Mendelian randomization — which sidesteps much of the confounding in ordinary surveys — likewise found no protective effect, and instead saw risk rising even at low intakes.
What the evidence says now
The major public-health bodies have moved accordingly. In January 2023 the World Health Organization stated that, where health is concerned, there is no safe amount of alcohol. Alcohol has long been classified by the International Agency for Research on Cancer as a Group 1 carcinogen — the same category as tobacco, asbestos, and radiation — and is linked to at least seven cancers, including cancers of the bowel and the female breast.
The risk is dose-dependent and, for some cancers, begins at very low levels. The US Surgeon General's advisory of January 2025 estimated that alcohol accounts for roughly 100,000 cancer cases and 20,000 cancer deaths a year in the United States, and called for cancer warning labels on alcoholic drinks. To put the scale of low-level risk in human terms, that advisory estimated that among 100 women who drink less than one drink a week, about 17 will develop an alcohol-related cancer over their lifetime. And in 2025 the American Heart Association — the body most associated with the old heart-health message — advised that doctors should step back from telling people to drink for the sake of their hearts.
One point runs through all of this: the harm comes from the alcohol itself, not from the type of drink. Wine, beer, and spirits differ in flavour and culture, but ethanol is ethanol. The resveratrol in a glass of red is real, but the amounts used in laboratory studies are far greater than anything a person could drink, and taking it as a supplement has not delivered the hoped-for benefits.
The debate is not entirely closed
It would be dishonest to present this as unanimous. Also in January 2025, a review by the US National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine acknowledged that some studies still associate light-to-moderate drinking with certain cardiovascular benefits, and argued that risk is best weighed individually rather than with a single blanket rule. Some researchers continue to defend the older findings. What has clearly changed is the centre of gravity: the confident "wine is good for you" of a decade ago has given way to, at best, genuine uncertainty about any benefit, set against well-established risks.
Where that leaves a wine lover
Wine remains one of the great pleasures of the table — bound up with food, place, history, and company in a way few drinks are. None of the science above changes that, and none of it is a lecture about what you should pour tonight. What has changed is the honest framing: wine is worth enjoying for what it is, not for what it might do for your cholesterol. Risk rises with how much and how often you drink, and it varies from person to person — anyone with a family history of breast cancer, liver, kidney, or digestive conditions, or who takes medication that interacts with alcohol, has particular reason to be cautious.
The best advice is the oldest: don't rely on any single article or study, this one included. Read widely, weigh it against your own circumstances, and, if it matters to your health, talk it over with your doctor. Then the decision — and the glass, if you choose it — is yours.
This article is general information, not medical advice.
The health benefits of moderate wine drinking have been studied for decades — and, more recently, similar claims have been made for beer. But is it good science, or good marketing? As researchers have taken a harder look, the supposed benefits of moderate drinking have largely not held up, while the risks are well established. And since the harm comes from the alcohol itself, not the drink, asking whether beer is "healthier" than wine mostly misses the point. The more useful questions are different ones: what does the evidence actually show, and who has the most reason to be cautious?