A nutritionist reveals the exact amount of wine you should be drinking every single day

The INSIDER Summary:

• Nutritionist Karen Ansel considers wine to be the healthiest alcohol.
• It's best to drink five ounces of wine per day.
• Wine contains polyphenols, which help protect the heart and brain.

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The good news is you should be drinking wine every day.

The bad news is you should only be drinking five ounces of it - that's a little under two thirds of a cup (not a large wine glass, but a standard eight-ounce cup).

That's according to nutritionist Karen Ansel (MS, RDN), who says that moderate alcohol consumption - one drink per day for women and two drinks per day for men - has been linked to improved heart health.

Although this goes for all kinds of alcohol, Ansel points to wine as being the healthiest booze.

She says that compared with those who don't drink at all, people who drink a moderate amount of wine every day are less likely to die of Alzheimer's or heart disease.

According to Ansel, this is because wine - both red and white - contains compounds called polyphenols, which help protect the heart and brain.

Ansel also makes the point that wine is often drunk with a meal, a healthier way to consume alcohol than knocking back shots on an empty stomach for example.

In a more general sense, Ansel says alcohol helps raise HDL cholesterol, the kind of cholesterol that's healthy for the human body and very hard to raise.

Plus, she adds that alcohol is a blood thinner, and therefore helps to prevent blood clots.