Do you hate it when your bloke sneaks off to the pub? Research today suggests he could be doing his heart a favour by drinking a bottle of wine or half a dozen beers a day.

In fact, regularly drinking alcohol of any type could help cut his risk of heart disease by more than half.

A 10-year study of more than 40,000 adults found that men who drank moderate, high and very high levels of alcohol were found to have around a 50 per cent lower risk of coronary heart disease than their teetotal counterparts.Those who drank a little – a glass of wine or a bottle of beer every other day – had a 35 per cent lower risk of a heart attack than those who never drank. Moderate drinkers, consuming up to a couple of glasses of wine a day or a couple of pints of ordinary bitter, had a 54 per cent lower risk.

The Spanish study looked into women's drinking and heart disease, but found that although women benefited from drinking, the effects were not statistically significant.

Before you rush to buy him another pint, British health experts have warned that people should not be encouraged to start drinking more and that the protective effect of alcohol on the heart is only seen in men over 40.

Robert Sutton, professor of surgery at the University of Liverpool, said: "This study suffers from several flaws, so cannot be taken to suggest that high levels of alcohol intake can improve health. Most importantly, all other alcohol-related diseases were completely ignored so that it is a highly biased view of the effects of alcohol."

Cathy Ross, of the British Heart Foundation, said that while moderate alcohol intake "could offer limited protection to one organ", abuse of it can damage the heart and other organs such as the liver, pancreas and brain.

Hmm, maybe it's best to re-cork that bottle of wine after all...