New research suggests that red wine could help people with type 2 diabetes manage their cholesterol and cardiac health.

"Red wine was found to be superior in improving overall metabolic profiles, mainly by modestly improving the lipid profile, by increasing good (HDL) cholesterol and apolipoprotein A1 (one of the major constituents of HDL cholesterol), while decreasing the ratio between total cholesterol and HDL cholesterol," the researchers explained.

For the study, researchers aimed to assess the effects and safety of initiating moderate alcohol consumption in diabetics, and sought to determine whether the type of wine matters.

Based on their findings they concluded that "initiating moderate wine intake, especially red wine, among well-controlled diabetics, as part of a healthy diet, is apparently safe, and modestly decreases cardio-metabolic risk. The differential genetic effects that were found may assist in identifying diabetic patients in whom moderate wine consumption may induce greater clinical benefit."

Researchers also found that only the slow alcohol-metabolizers who drank wine achieved an improvement in blood sugar control, while fast alcohol-metabolizers (with much faster blood alcohol clearance) did not benefit from the ethanol's glucose control effect. Approximately one in five participants was found to be a fast alcohol-metabolizer, identified through ADH enzyme genetic variants tests.

The findings are detailed in the journal Annals of Internal Medicine.