These results should be interpreted in light of the study’s strengths and limitations. The results were obtained in a clinical trial and not in a typical treatment setting; therefore the findings may not readily generalize to traditional clinical settings outside of the context of a clinical trial. Fasting was not a mandatory requirement in this trial before performing blood draws. This limit was inevitable as the COMBINE study was not designed to assess blood glucose as a treatment outcome. Therefore, blood laboratory tests were not performed after an overnight fasting, although it was usually performed after > 2 hrs fasting. Furthermore, all of our drinking and craving measures were based on self-report. However, data were collected by experienced staff who had received supervised training in assessing alcohol consumption (Sobell and Sobell, 1992) and craving (Anton et al., 1996; Roberts et al., 1999). Finally, we also recognize the small magnitude of the relationships found in this study, therefore recommending caution in future applications of the results.
