Not all booze is created equal — and for wine lovers, that could be good news.
Across the country, Americans are cutting back on alcohol, with surveys showing most adults now believe even a drink or two a day can be bad for your health.
But new research suggests the story isn’t so simple, suggesting that people who sip a certain amount of wine each day may have a lower risk of dying from heart disease than relative teetotalers.
“These findings can help refine guidance, emphasizing that the health risks of alcohol depend not only on the amount of alcohol consumed, but also on the type of beverage,” Dr. Zhangling Chen, a professor at the Second Xiangya Hospital, Central South University in China and the study’s senior author, said in a press release.
To get the full picture, Chen and her team analyzed alcohol habits and health outcomes among 340,924 adults in the UK between 2006 and 2022.
The participants were instructed to fill out detailed dietary questionnaires, including how much alcohol they typically drank. Researchers then sorted them into four groups based on their alcohol intake, measured in grams of pure alcohol per day and per week.
For context, a 12-ounce beer, a 5-ounce glass of wine or a 1.5-ounce shot of liquor each contains about 14 grams of pure alcohol.
Those who consumed less than 20 grams per week, about 1.5 standard drinks, were classified as never or occasional drinkers.
The low alcohol consumption group included men who drank more than 20 grams per week but no more than 20 grams per day, and women who drank between 10 grams per day and 20 grams per week.
The moderate consumption group consisted of men who drank 20 to 40 grams per day and women who drank 10 to 20 grams per day.
Anything above that — more than 40 grams per day for men and more than 20 grams per day for women — was classified as high alcohol consumption.
The researchers followed the participants for an average of 13 years, and what they found wasn’t exactly a toast to heavy drinking.
Compared to those who never or occasionally drank, heavy drinkers were:
- 24% more likely to die from any cause
- 36% more likely to die from cancer
- 14% more likely to die from heart disease
But when the team dug deeper, they found not all alcohol affects the body the same way.
“Even low to moderate intake of spirits, beer or cider is linked to higher mortality, while low to moderate intake of wine may carry lower risk,” Chen said.
The difference was especially striking when researchers looked at cardiovascular disease, the top killer in the US. Moderate wine drinkers stood out, boasting a 21% lower risk of dying from the chronic illness compared to those who rarely or never drank.
On the flip side, even light consumption of beer, cider or liquor was linked to a 9% higher risk of dying from heart disease.
That’s particularly noteworthy in the US, where beer remains the most popular drink, followed by liquor and then wine, according to a 2025 Gallup survey.
Researchers say several factors may explain why different types of alcohol affect the body differently.
For one, certain compounds in red wine, like resveratrol, may support heart health. Some studies suggest this polyphenol can help protect blood vessels and reduce the risk of blood clots and inflammation.
Wine, the study authors note, is also more often consumed with meals, and people who follow higher-quality diets and healthier lifestyles tend to reach for it.
By contrast, spirits, beer and cider are more commonly consumed outside of meals and are associated with lower-quality diets and other lifestyle risk factors.
“These results come from the general population, and in certain high-risk groups, such as people with chronic diseases or cardiovascular conditions, the risks could be even higher,” Chen cautioned.
But the study does have some limitations.
Alcohol intake was self-reported at the start and didn’t track changes over time. Participants were also drawn from the UK Biobank, a group generally healthier than the overall population.
Still, the researchers say the findings provide a more nuanced view of how drinking habits may shape long-term health, helping clarify previously mixed evidence on low to moderate alcohol consumption.
“Taken together, these factors suggest that the type of alcohol, how it is consumed and the associated lifestyle behaviors all contribute to the observed differences in mortality risk,” Chen said.
The research comes as fewer Americans are reaching for the bottle.
Last year, just 54% of US adults reported having a drink — the lowest level since Gallup began tracking alcohol use in 1939.
Even among those who do drink, consumption is down: In 2025, Americans averaged just 2.8 drinks per week, the lowest figure the polling company has recorded in nearly three decades.
