According to a major study, a pint of beer or glass of wine can cut your risk of dying young by up to a quarter. Now that’s a study I can get behind.

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A drink a day can also lower the chances of having a heart attack by a third. The research, which was carried out by experts at Cambridge and University College London, looked at the drinking habits of nearly 2 million healthy UK residents.

Compared with teetotallers, moderate drinkers saw their chances of angina falling by 33%, heart attack by 32%, heart failure by 24% and stroke by 12%. They were also 24% less likely to die early.

Of course, these findings don’t mean you can just go around binge-drinking every day – the healthiest group were those who drank less than 14 units per week, which is about seven pints of beer or nine glasses of wine. I’m sure most of us can do that in a night.

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The reason for these findings could be related to previous studies, which show that small amounts of alcohol can have a positive affect on the levels of “good” cholesterol.

Researcher Annie Britton, from UCL, said:

You cannot ignore the findings, this is good news for moderate drinkers.

It shows small amounts of alcohol do improve heart health in many ways and is also associated with a lower risk of mortality than non-drinkers or heavy drinkers.

But we would not recommend people start drinking to protect their heart as there are safer ways for them to reduce their risk – such as exercise and better diet.

Yeah but, what’s the fun in that? I’m going to stick to my evening wine sessions cheers – far more fun than going to the gym. And according to this study, equally as effective too.