Does moderate drinking actually protect your heart? I've heard red wine is good for you.

The cardioprotective effect of moderate alcohol does not hold up under causal scrutiny. The observational studies that appeared to show a J-shaped curve, moderate drinkers living longer than abstainers, contained a systematic bias called sick-quitter bias: researchers grouped former drinkers (people who had stopped drinking because they were ill) with lifelong abstainers, making abstainers look sicker and moderate drinkers look healthier by comparison. The apparent protection was largely a statistical artifact.

Mendelian randomization studies, which use genetic variants in alcohol metabolism as a natural experiment and are immune to this confounding, find no cardiovascular benefit at any dose of alcohol. The most complete analysis, the Global Burden of Disease 2016 study in the Lancet, examined 195 countries and 28 million people and concluded that the safest level of alcohol consumption is zero, from a population health standpoint. This does not mean two drinks per week is a catastrophic choice for a healthy man with otherwise managed risk. It means the cardioprotective rationale that once provided permission for moderate drinking no longer exists. (Holmes et al., BMJ, 2014)

Cardiologist's calibrated position, Unsupported (5) for alcohol cardiovascular protection at any dose. This is the SDE Honesty Scale's most unambiguous verdict on a topic contested for three decades.

What to do: Remove "the studies say moderate drinking is good for my heart" from your risk calculus. The studies have been reassessed. Make your drinking decisions based on what you know the data actually shows.

For the full picture, read The Bourbon Collector's Honest Reckoning.