Study strengths include the large sample of subjects studied, making this analysis the largest one in which the link between glucose and heavy drinking has been studied. Moreover, we noted the results were obtained in the context of a methodologically rigorous research protocol. The exclusion of severely ill patients with alcoholism, and those with medical, psychiatric, and comorbid substance misuse problems improved the homogeneity of the sample population and eliminated several possible confounding factors, such as medical disorders able to influence glucose levels (e.g.: diabetes, liver cirrhosis, etc) or patients prescribed drug classes (e.g.: antipsychotics) known to be associated with altered glucose levels.
