A glass of wine a day can stop people piling on the pounds and even help you LOSE weight

A glass a day keeps obesity at bay: Heavy drinking can make you put on weight, but with moderation it can have the opposite effect

A glass of wine a day can actually stop people from getting fat and may even help people to lose weight, say scientists.

Alcohol has always been thought to trigger weight gain because of its high sugar content, but new research suggests a glass a day could form part of any diet plan.

Looking at past studies they found that, while heavy drinkers do put on weight, those who drink in moderation can actually lose weight.

A spokesman for the research team at the Navarro University in Spain said: 'Light-to-moderate alcohol intake, especially of wine, may be more likely to protect against, rather than promote, weight gain.

'As positive associations between alcohol and weight gain were mainly found in studies with data on higher levels of drinking, it is possible an effect on weight gain or abdominal adiposity may only be experienced by heavy drinkers.'

They added that 'the type of alcoholic beverage might play an important role in modifying the effect of alcohol consumption on weight gain' with more favourable effects generally seen among wine drinkers.

The International Scientific Forum on Alcohol Research, reviewed the findings and agreed with most of the conclusions, particularly that current data does not clearly indicate if moderate drinking increases weight.

Boston University's Dr Harvey Finkel found that the biologic mechanisms relating alcohol to changes in body weight are not properly  understood.

His team pointed out the strong protective effects of moderate drinking on the risk of conditions like metabolic syndrome and diabetes, both of which relate to increasing obesity.

Some studies suggest even very obese people may be at lower risk of diabetes if they are moderate drinkers.

The group said alcohol provides calories that are quickly absorbed into the body and are not stored in fat and this metabolic process could explain differences in the effects from other foods.

They agreed that future research should be directed towards assessing the specific roles of different types of alcoholic drinks, taking into account drinking patterns and including the propensity of participants to gain weight in the past.

For now there is little evidence someone consuming small to moderate amounts of alcohol on a regular basis is increasing his or her risk of becoming obese, but a study three years ago suggested that resveratrol, a compound present in grapes and red wine, destroys fat cells.

The anti-oxidant protected laboratory mice that were fed a high-calorie diet from the health problems of obesity, by mimicking the effects of calorie restriction.