A little bit of wine may not only prevent heart disease, but may help people who have already had one heart attack prevent a second.
French researchers found middle-aged Frenchmen who had had one heart attack and who regularly drank two or more glasses of wine were 50 per cent lesslikely than non-drinkers to have a second heart attack.
Dr Michel de Lorgeril, of the Joseph Fourier University of Grenoble, and colleagues studied 353 men aged 40 to 60 who had just had heart attacks.
There were no significant differences in how severe their heart attacks had been, what drugs they used or what they ate. The main differences lay in whether they drank wine.
Writing in the American Heart Association journal Circulation, de Lorgeril's team said the men had 104 cardiovascular complications such as a heart attack or stroke over the next year.
Thirty-six of the complications occurred among men who abstained from alcohol, 34 among men who drank fewer than two glasses of wine a day, 18 among those who drank about two glasses a day, and 16 among men who drank an average of four to five glasses of wine a day.
The researchers stressed that more studies were needed to better define what type of patients would most benefit from moderate drinking after a heart attack.
