We love studies that tell us our long-thought, unhealthy habits turn out to be not so bad for us after all. Especially when those habits involve alcohol. And I have good news for the wine-loving community. According to a study published in Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, master sommeliers (a fancy term for wine experts) have acute senses of smell and have parts of the brain that are thicker and larger than people who are not wine experts.

Studying wine in depth (while drinking it of course) might increase the volume of the right and left entorhinal cortex, the right insula region, and a small region in the left hippocampus, according to Food and Wine Magazine. In short, drinking wine and learning about it seems to make your brain bigger. This thickening of the brain is thought to help prevent Alzheimer's and Parkinson's. Having more brain tissue in these areas may mean that the effects of these diseases take longer to set in, but we don't know for sure.

An article by yourbrainhealth.com, talks about a study that concludes low-to-moderate alcohol use is associated with a 38 percent reduced risk of dementia and a 32 percent reduced risk of Alzheimer's. In layman's terms, move over apples, because drinking a glass of wine a day might keep the doctor away!

Wine may have beneficial effects on not only the brain, but the heart as well. Drinking small amounts of alcohol lessens your risk of heart disease. And according to gizmodo.com, red wine packs in 4 to 9 percent of your DRI of iron, 9.4 percent daily potassium, and 5 percent of magnesium. It also contains a lot of antioxidants.

But the benefits don't stop there—moderate drinkers also have 30 percent less risk than non-drinkers of developing type two diabetes. And the possibility of suffering a blood clot-related stroke drops by about 50 percent in people who consume moderate amounts of alcohol.

Most studies recommend drinking only one or two glasses of wine a day, one glass of wine measuring about five fluid ounces. So don't get too carried away.

And if wine isn't your favorite drink, gizmodo.com also has a list of the healthiest alcoholic drinks, which includes plenty of different liquor to choose room.

Though guzzling down glasses of wine still isn't a surefire way to maintain good health, there have been several studies on how drinking wine, and even learning about it, can benefit you. And even if we can't be completely 100 percent sure that wine may have these health benefits, it doesn't hurt to try, right? Either way, I know my fellow winos and I will use these studies as an excuse to have a healthy glass of wine after a long, strenuous day.