Life's better on a bottle a day

Half a bottle of claret a day will do more to improve your chances of surviving to old age than a couple of pints of Old Peculiar or a few shots of Glenlivet, say doctors.

Half a bottle of claret a day will do more to improve your chances of surviving to old age than a couple of pints of Old Peculiar or a few shots of Glenlivet, say doctors.

Even the serious wine lover, drinking the equivalent of a bottle a day had a lower overall death rate than the teetotaller, and substantially lower than the beer or spirit drinker.Wine lovers gain a greater health benefit from their favourite drink, and can consume more of it with impunity, than beer or spirit drinkers, a survey shows.

Moderate drinking is known to be good for health, especially by reducing the risk of heart attacks, but there is less certainty about whether the type of alcohol makes a difference.

Now Bandolier, the print and internet journal which is the main source of evidence-based information for GPs, has published research comparing the health effects of wine, beer and spirits. The results show that wine (red or white) is the healthiest way to take alcohol but it does not distinguish between red and white.

The findings, from a study of 13,000 men and 11,000 women aged 20 to 98 in Denmark, were originally published in the US journal Annals of Internal Medicine. Bandolier searches publications worldwide and extracts and distils the best studies for GPs and their patients.

The survey shows deaths from all causes were reduced by 18 per cent among those who had up to 21 drinks a week, of any kind. Heart disease deaths were reduced by half but cancer deaths increased by a third on more than 22 drinks a week, compared with teetotallers.