Alcohol and the Heart: The End of a Convenient Assumption

In March 2026, the Federal Commission on Addiction and the Prevention of Noncommunicable Diseases declared the previous Swiss guidelines for low-risk alcohol consumption invalid and explicitly stated that the widespread assumption that a glass of wine is good for the heart is not true. This brings a topic back into the clinical setting that had long been considered settled. The current evidence paints a nuanced picture: For atrial fibrillation and hypertension, alcohol is an early-onset, dose-dependent, and—above all—modifiable risk factor, for which randomized intervention data are now available. For coronary heart disease, the evidence remains less certain than the “red wine narrative” would ever have allowed.