Drinking a couple of glasses of wine each day improves your quality of life, researchers say.
They found that those who drink in moderation had better scores in an index that measures factors including dexterity, emotion, mobility and the ability to understand than those who abstained completely.
U.S. researchers from the Boston University School of Medicine studied 5,404 people at the age of 50, and continued to observe them over a follow-up period.
Most showed a stable pattern of alcohol consumption and ‘persistent moderate drinkers’ were identified.
They found that these regular moderate drinkers – those who consumed no more than 14 drinks a week and no more than three a day for women and four a day for men – scored highest in each section of the Health Utilities Index.
Subsequent changes in quality of life past 50 were similar in all groups, except for those who cut down on drinking from moderate levels – and these showed signs of decline.
