Male moderate drinkers with high blood pressure don't have an elevated risk of having heart attacks, according to new research.

USA Today reported Jan. 1 that the study focused on 11,711 men with hypertension; moderate drinking was defined as having one or two alcoholic drinks daily. "We could not find any increased risk of heart disease or death due to heart disease for moderate drinkers," said researcher Joline Beulens of the University Medical Center Utrecht. "Moderate drinkers may even have a reduced risk for heart attack."

U.S. doctors have long recommended that men with high blood pressure abstain from drinking because of past studies showing that having three or more drinks daily can raise blood pressure and heart-attack risk. But the new study indicated that moderate drinking among men with high blood pressure "seems to be associated with a lower risk of heart attack, similar to the association seen in healthy men in general," said study co-author Kenneth Mukamal of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston.

The study was published in the Jan. 2, 2007 issue of the Annals of Internal Medicine.