Table 1.

Criteria for inclusion and exclusion of studies based on the patient, intervention, comparison and outcome (PICO) method.

	Inclusion	Exclusion
Population	General population of adults—both genders	Pregnant women, adolescents, children, all individulas younger than 18 years; populations affected by any chronic or acute diseases (e.g., NAFLD, diabetes, overweight/obese), animals
Intervention/exposure	Consumption of alcoholic beverages (any type)	Consumption of ad libitum alcohol in non specific dosages
Comparator	PWV in alcohol vs. non alcohol consumers	Not applicable
Outcome	Arterial stiffness assessed by Pulse Wave Velocity (any method)	Arterial stiffness assessed by Pulse Pressure, Augmentation Index or measures different than PWV
Study design	All types of study design within the field of interest	Systematic reviews, meta-analyses, conference reports, editorials, comments, letters, case reports, case series