Alcohol and Alcoholism Vol. 38, No. 3, pp. 287, 2003
© 2003 Medical Council on Alcohol
LETTER TO THE EDITOR
LONG-TERM ABSTINENT ALCOHOLICS HAVE A BLUNTED BLOOD GLUCOSE RESPONSE TO 2-DEOXY-D-GLUCOSE
2 Saxfield Drive, Baguley Hall, Manchester M23 1PY, UK
Received 18 November 2002; accepted 2 January 2003
With regard to the article entitled as above by Umhau et al.(2002)
, may I make the following comments. This important article helps to dispel the myth about alcoholics consuming sweet food as a compensatory mechanism. The subjects included in the study are said to have at least 6 months sobriety without any indication of a range or upper duration. It is difficult to accept this as ‘long-term abstinence’.
Is it not time to set a standard for long-term studies in the field of alcoholism to equate with other illnesses such as 5- and 10-year recovery for cancer. Both researchers and editors in the field of alcoholism should now accept 5 years to be the minimum, not the mean or average, criterion for the duration of long-term sobriety and recovery. This would still allow for short-term or intermediate-term to be additionally defined.
REFERENCES
Umhau, J. C., Petrulis, S. G., Diaz, R., Riggs, P. A., Biddison, J. R. and George, D. T. (2002) Long-term abstinent alcoholics have a blunted blood glucose response to 2-deoxy-D-glucose. Alcohol and Alcoholism 37, 586–590.
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