The cachaça, despite having a smaller proportion of sugars than the beer, did not promote a significant increase in glycaemia in the volunteers. Although some researchers (Marks & Rose, 1981)have demonstrated that the combined ingestion of alcohol and sugar can produce an initial increase in glycaemia, accompanied in some cases by reactive hypoglycaemia due to an increase in insulin some hours after ingestion of the drink, this did not occur in our study. The reactive hypoglycaemia is related to the amount and the nature of the sugars ingested together with the alcohol.