When it comes to booze and heart health, wine usually gets all the attention — but it doesn’t quite deserve it.

Sure, wine is great for you — but it’s not the only healthy adult beverage in the bar.

In fact, you can get just about all the benefits of wine and then some from plain old beer — and the latest research confirms that a cold brew is every bit as good for your heart as a glass of red.

Researchers from Italy’s Fondazione di Ricerca e Cura say their survey of 200,000 people from around the world finds that regular beer drinkers have a 31 percent lower risk of heart disease than people who don’t drink booze at all.

That’s precisely the same decrease in heart risk enjoyed by wine drinkers — but it’s coming from hops and barley instead of grapes, according to the study in the European Journal of Epidemiology.

And that’s not all beer can do for you — not even close. Beer is also rich in potassium, magnesium, B vitamins and key antioxidants. It can help lower the inflammation linked to heart disease and other serious problems, and raise levels of HDL (“good”) cholesterol by as much as 12 percent.

Beer is also the single best source of dietary silicon around, which can help protect your bones as you age.

One study even found that dieters who drink beer can lose more weight — proving that the so-called “beer belly” is a myth. If you see a drinker with a big belly, take a look at what he’s eating — because that’s almost certainly the real reason for his keg-sized gut.

Of course, whether you drink wine or beer, you’ll only get the benefits if you make your habit a moderate one and cut yourself off before you drink too much (and if you have to wonder if you’ve had too much, you’ve probably reached that point).

Keep it to a glass or two a night, and you’ll enjoy both the benefits and the taste.

So go ahead — pop the cork or crack open a frosty one. It’s good for you.

Culture is a funny thing: In some places, you’re considered a little weird if you meditate… in others, you’re weird if you don’t.

Most people here in the West never even consider it at all — but maybe you should, because a growing body of evidence finds that this practice of the mind can have a major impact on the body, including a serious boost in heart health.

In fact, it works so well that researchers from Harvard University and Justuc Liebig University say it’s time for mainstream docs to start working meditation into their clinical practices as a treatment for some of our most common — and overmedicated — conditions, especially hypertension.

While no one has been able to pinpoint how meditation can accomplish so much with so little, the study in Perspectives on Psychological Science breaks the effects down into four key components: attention regulation, body awareness, emotion regulation, and sense of self.

Sounds to me like it’s as mysterious as ever, at least to Western science. In any case, I’m more interested in what it does rather than how it does it — because it’s downright astonishing.

In one recent study on cardiovascular health, the researchers said meditators got so many benefits that it was as if they had been given some powerful new drug.

In that one, the patients who practiced a popular form of meditation were 50 percent less likely to suffer from heart attack, stroke or even death from any cause during that study period than non-meditators.

Powerful new drug? Big Pharma can only wish it had a med this safe and effective!

Another recent study found that meditation can improve concentration and focus, while other studies have found that the practice can slash levels of stress, anxiety, depression and anger while improving memory and cognition and boosting immune system function.

Learning meditation can get pricey — there are expensive courses and fancy retreats you can take. But it doesn’t have to cost you an arm and a leg to get a new look inside your mind.

In fact, it can even be free. Visit your local library and check out a few books on the subject — you’ll learn everything you need to know to get started.

It turns out your mouth may play a bigger role in heart health than anyone could have imagined.

We already know that what you eat can have a huge impact on your heart. The low-fat, high-carb “Torture Chamber Diet,” for example, has led directly to the obesity and diabetes epidemics now facing our nation. And that one-two punch has left our tickers battered and beaten, making heart disease our number one killer.

But now we have more evidence that it’s not just the food you put in your mouth that matters when it comes to your heart. How you treat your teeth and gums, and how clean you keep your kisser, appears to have a direct impact on your overall cardiac health.

To put it simply, dirty mouths – and I’m not talking about salty language – lead to more heart attacks, according to a study carried out at the University of Buffalo in New York and presented at a meeting of the International Association of Dental Research.

The researchers looked at 386 men and women who had suffered heart attacks, and 840 people who had no history of heart trouble. They found that the heart attack victims had higher levels of bacteria in their mouths.

This isn’t the first study to find a connection between the condition of our teeth and gums and the overall health of our hearts. No one’s quite been able to put a finger on exactly why it matters – it may be that the bacteria in the mouth causes inflammation that can spread and ultimately lead to blood clots.

But we do know this: It matters, and possibly quite a bit.

The researchers in Buffalo were trying to find out if a specific kind of bacteria in the mouth might be a better indicator of heart disease, and they did find two that seemed more prevalent in heart attack victims. But in general, it was the sheer number of bacteria – and not their type – that mattered most of all.

More bacteria meant more heart attacks. Period.

That means it’s more important than ever not only to brush your teeth after meals, but to visit the dentist twice a year for a more thorough cleaning.

Now, many of us look forward to a trip to the dentist’s office about as much as, well, a trip to the dentist’s office.

I understand how you feel. I’ve taken my lumps in that chair, too. You can brush twice a day and avoid sugary foods and still find yourself squirming when that light comes on and the hygienist leans in.

It’s tempting to skip it, and unfortunately that’s what many people do – especially as we get older. And that’s a huge mistake. When you consider how dramatically the risks to your heart increase as you age, you need to start looking at those dental trips as more than just oral hygiene pit stops.

Because now we can say almost for certain that your dentist isn’t just saving your teeth.  He may be saving your life.

Get off those deadly pills and learn to control your blood pressure with safe, effective cures.