People who drink up to almost 2½ bottles of wine a week have a lower risk of premature death than those who abstain from alcohol, research has suggested.

Moderate drinkers are less likely than either teetotallers or heavy drinkers to die of heart disease and other causes, and the protective effect is magnified if they also take plenty of exercise, scientists have found.

A weekly consumption of up to 14 drinks – classified as a glass of wine, a bottle of beer or a single measure of spirits – offers the greatest health benefits, a 20-year study of almost 12,000 Danish men and women has concluded.

The healthiest were those who were moderate drinkers and moderately or very physically active. Their risk of dying from heart disease was about half that of inactive nondrinkers.

Martin Grønbaek, of the University of Southern Denmark in Copenhagen, who led the research, said: “Our study shows that being both physically active and drinking a moderate amount of alcohol is important for lowering the risk of both fatal ischaemic heart disease (IHD) and death from all causes. For both men and women, being physically active was associated with a significantly lower risk for both fatal IHD and all-cause mortality than being physically inactive, and drinking alcohol was associated with a lower risk of fatal IHD than abstaining.

“A weekly moderate alcohol intake reduced the risk of all-cause mortality among both men and women, whereas the risk among heavy drinkers was similar to nondrinkers.”

In the study, published in the European Heart Journal, a team led by Professor Grønbaek, Berit Heitmann and Jane Østergaard Pedersen, analysed data collected by the Copenhagen City Heart Study, a long-running research cohort assembled in the 1970s to investigate cardiovascular health.

In the mid1970s, almost 20,000 Danish men and women from the same area of Copenhagen were selected randomly from electoral rolls. About 70 per cent agreed to participate, and 11,914 adults eventually answered detailed questionnaires between 1981 and 1983 about many aspects of their behaviour that were considered possible influences on cardiovascular health, including exercise and drinking habits.

The goal was to follow up a large group of ordinary people over a long period to find out whether different behaviours among a people of broadly similar social background were associated with any health effects.

There have been 5,901 deaths, including 1,242 from ischaemic heart disease.

Ms Østergaard Pedersen said: “The lowest risk of death from all causes was observed among the physically active moderate drinkers and the highest risk among the physically inactive non and heavy drinkers.”

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