“…However, on close scrutiny of published series [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20], the data on which this assumption is made are often poorly recorded or, in those series where this aspect was specifically addressed, conflicting reports have emerged [8, 13, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19] (Table 1). Although it would appear that alcohol plays an important role in precipitating acute attacks during the early stages of the disease [9, 13, 14], the association is less convincing among patients with advanced disease. A number of reasons have been offered to explain these variable reports.…”