Two glasses of red wine a day after surgery, or none at all: a Milan trial put the question to 123 regular drinkers

People who drink wine regularly have often been told to cut down or stop around an operation, mostly because heavy drinking is known to make surgery go worse. But there is little guidance for the person who has a glass or two with dinner and no drinking problem, and the team behind this trial, at the San Raffaele hospital and research institute in Milan, wanted to know whether taking that habit away helps or hurts. Their paper, the WISE trial, appeared in the World Journal of Urology on 28 October.

Between December 2022 and February 2025 they randomly assigned 132 habitual wine drinkers due for planned urological surgery to one of two routines for the 30 days after their operation: no alcohol at all, or 150 mL of 13% red wine with lunch and again with dinner, about 30 g of alcohol a day, measured out by the researchers. A psychologist screened everyone for alcohol abuse first. Results cover the 123 with complete data, 61 on wine and 62 not drinking. Nearly all were men (98%), with a median age of 64. About three in four had endoscopic procedures, and the rest had robot-assisted operations, almost all prostate removals.

The main test was the change in the Mental Health Index of the SF-36 questionnaire after 30 days, and the trial was built to detect a 5-point benefit. It found nothing of the kind. Scores moved by +0.7 points with wine and -0.6 without, a difference of 1.3 points that could easily be chance (p = 0.4). Allowing for starting scores raised the gap to 2.2 points, still not significant, and allowing for the type of surgery as well cut it back to about 1.4. None of the eight areas the questionnaire covers differed significantly, and neither did liver or kidney tests or markers of oxidative stress, the mechanism often mentioned when red wine is praised.

The number that will catch the eye is readmissions: five patients in the no-alcohol group went back to hospital within 30 days and none in the wine group. The authors tell readers not to treat that as a benefit. The events were few, the result missed significance (p = 0.06), and the readmissions were surgical problems such as leaks and bleeding, largely after the bigger robotic operations, which the no-alcohol group happened to have slightly more of. Nor does the trial show that wine after surgery is safe. It was sized for the mood score only, nobody was blinded to their group, intake was self-reported without blood or breath tests, and its almost entirely male, fairly healthy patients say little about women, younger people, heavier drinkers or more complex surgery. The authors' own conclusion is narrow: no sign of short-term harm or benefit in this selected group, and no support for anyone starting or increasing alcohol.