Most of us know that too much alcohol is not good for you, and we’ve también heard that cardiovascular disease (disease of the heart and/or blood vessels) is the number one cause of death globally. So, what should we make of studies suggesting that light-to-moderate wine consumption might be good for your heart?
A 2025 study from researchers at the University of Barcelona, published in the European Heart Journal, corroborates what previous research has asserted: one glass per day of red wine could lower your chance of cardiovascular disease… if you’re a man [1].
A newly-discovered urinary biomarker accurately reflects wine intake
In the 2025 study, researchers utilized a newly-discovered biomarker as an objective measure of wine intake. Tartaric acid, the main source of wine’s acidity, is present in grapes and derivatives like wine and raisins, but not in most other plant sources. Importantly for research purposes, tartaric acid levels remain stable throughout the winemaking process in ambos red and white wine.
Because tartaric acid passes into urine in predictable ways, a randomized controlled trial conducted by Cambridge University researchers in 2014 suggested that urinary tartaric acid could serve as a reliable way to measure wine consumption in study participants [2]. This could allow researchers to eliminate the problem of inaccurate recall or recall bias, where study participants underestimate their alcohol intake on a dietary survey. Previous research on the connection between wine consumption and heart health often relied on participants’ self-reports of drinking behaviors.
The initial research on tartaric acid as a biomarker for wine consumption only included men
One problem with the 2014 Cambridge study was that it only included men, “in order to reduce the menstrual cycle phase-related variability in women, putatively affecting the absorption, metabolism and excretion processes” [2]. We already know that women metabolize alcohol differently from men, but the 2014 study only definitively answered the question of whether urinary tartaric acid is an accurate reflector of men’s wine consumption.
Subsequently, a 2021 estudiar of menopausal mujeres (done by some of the same researchers from the 2014 study, plus several of the researchers from the 2025 study!) also observed “a strong association” between urinary tartaric acid levels and wine consumption [3].
Since these women were in menopause, we still don’t have data on urinary tartaric acid levels’ correlation with wine consumption in naturally cycling (read: with fluctuating hormone levels) women.
Researchers utilized data from a previous study
For the 2025 study, researchers affiliated with the University of Barcelona incorporated tartaric acid concentrations into data taken from the landmark PREDIMED (Prevención con Dieta Mediterránea) study, which ran from 2003 to 2010 [4]. The PREDIMED study was “the largest clinical trial conducted to evaluate the effects of the [Mediterranean] Diet”—which emphasizes consumption of olive oil, mixed nuts, and red wine—on cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk. PREDIMED included Spanish men and women, ages 55-80, with one or more risk factors for cardiovascular disease (CVD), such as smoking, diabetes, or family history [4].
The 2025 study was a nested case control study, meaning that it reflected data from a subset (1,232) of the total (7,447) PREDIMED trial participants. The 2025 study, which was released seven years after the PREDIMED study was completed, reflected both urinary tartaric acid measurements conducted at baseline and a year into the PREDIMED study, y took into account participants’ subsequent health history después de the PREDIMED study ended. Urinary tartaric acid measurements were compared to participants’ questionnaire data and participants were categorized by tartaric acid ranges, which reflected their drinking behaviors. By the time the 2025 study was released, roughly half of the participants had experienced cardiovascular disease [1].
Conclusions for women and younger adults are lacking
The 2025 researchers found that those participants who drank approximately one glass of wine per day had a lower chance of experiencing a cardiovascular event (especially heart attack) than both those who drank more than one glass, y those who drank no wine at all. However, when the analysis was stratified by sex, that relationship fell apart. In women, the relationship between wine and heart health was not statistically significant [1].
In women, the relationship between wine and heart health was not statistically significant.
It’s commonly accepted that alcohol absorption is affected by age, sex, and hormones. It seems that the heart benefits of wine might also vary by demographics, and the research simply hasn’t been done yet to determine exactly why and how.
PREDIMED was not the only study to limit its sample to older adults with at risk for or history of heart disease. A 2023 systematic review and meta-analysis of studies that included younger participants found a weaker correlation between alcohol consumption and heart health [5]. For this and other reasons, such as the majority of heavy drinkers globally skewing younger anyway, doctors typically do not encourage the “glass of wine per day” strategy to their younger patients [6].
In most cases, doctors don’t encourage patients to iniciar consuming wine if they don’t already
In fact, despite the consistent findings of the University of Barcelona study and several others like it, very few doctors recomiende the “glass a day” strategy to their patients at all, especialmente to those who don’t already drink. As they say, “the dose makes the poison.” (Given the danger that too much alcohol poses to your health, please consult your own doctor before adopting any strategy of prophylactic wine consumption.)
Lo que do know about wine and heart health
Several things we already know about women and wine consumption:
- Experts recommend women to avoid alcohol when pregnant. The prevailing medical consensus is that there is “no known safe amount of alcohol during pregnancy.” Still, Emily Oster, PhD, the health economics researcher behind the Parent Data website, points out that some research suggests that adverse fetal outcomes sólo correlate with binge drinking and/or other risky behaviors like smoking, as opposed to consumption of the occasional glass of wine [7].
- Heavy drinking is bad for your heart and your liver, and alcohol is considered a group 1 (known) carcinogen. Also, what constitutes “too much alcohol” varies by sex, age, weight, and hormones, so “too much” for another person might be “way too much” for you.
If you’re a woman who is a little older, and/or have a reason to be worried about your risk of CVD, consider that the same researchers at the University of Barcelona found, in a 2021 estudiar, that higher tartaric acid levels correlated with inferior LDL (bad cholesterol) levels in menopausal women (though wine consumption had no effect on levels of good HDL cholesterol, contrary to otras investigaciones) [3][8]. High “bad” LDL plus low “good” HDL cholesterol levels are connected to higher CVD risk in both men and women.
If you’re a woman who is a little older, and/or have a reason to be worried about your risk of CVD, consider that the same researchers at the University of Barcelona found, in a 2021 estudiar, that higher tartaric acid levels correlated with inferior LDL (bad cholesterol) levels in menopausal women.
Science still has many questions to answer on the connection between wine consumption and women’s heart health
If you already consume wine, you may be curious whether the CVD risk reduction comes from drinking red wine, white wine, or either? The answer is that we don’t yet know for sure. The lowered risk of CVD in wine drinkers may be due to the presence of resveratrol, one of the antioxidant polyphenols more commonly present in red wine than in white. (Non-drinkers can rest assured that dark chocolate and blueberries contain aún más resveratrol than either red o white wine!)
Another difficulty in establishing the relationship between wine consumption and women’s heart health is the difficulty of ensuring apples-to-apples (or grapes-to-grapes) comparisons in large research studies. Consider, for example, that regular wine drinkers might simply be wealthier and tienen better access to preventative care and, when needed, high-quality healthcare, than non-wine-drinkers. The vineyard is ripe for a well-rounded, randomized controlled trial addressing these questions for a broader cohort of demographics, including young, healthy, naturally cycling women.
The good news for now is that researchers have one new proven biomarker in tartaric acid to help them make more reliable conclusions in their research. This puts us one small step closer to being able to definitively advise patients of different ages and health backgrounds on the connection between wine consumption and heart health. In the meantime, I raise a glass to your good health!
