Wine is bad for you again but the conflicting alcohol advice is enough to make anyone need a drink

Analysis: As scientists suggest we abandon the notion that a daily glass of wine might ‘somehow be healthy’, Alex Matthews-King looks at where these mixed messages might have come from

These studies are also blighted by coincidences that can only be partly controlled for with statistics (Getty Images/iStockphoto)

The public should stop fooling themselves that a daily glass of wine is “somehow healthy”, according to Dr Sarah Hartz, author of the latest piece of research chronicling our on-again, off-again relationship with drinking.

Simultaneously flying in the face of dozens of studies showing its benefits and corroborating mounds of data on its risks, it shows that drinking on four or more days a week increases risk of an early death by 20 per cent.

Each time a seemingly contradictory piece of research is trotted out the cliche is to cry “why can’t scientists make up their minds?” and anyone who built a diet around 2014’s superlative “a bottle of wine a day is not bad for you and abstaining is worse than drinking” can feel particularly aggrieved.