Quantitative assessments of the health risk of the constituents of alcoholic beverages including ethanol are reported in the literature, generally with hepatotoxic effects considered as the endpoint. Risk assessment studies on minor compounds such as mycotoxins, metals, and other contaminants are also available on carcinogenicity as the endpoint. This review seeks to highlight population cancer risks due to alcohol consumption using the margin of exposure methodology. The individual and cumulative health risk contribution of each component in alcoholic beverages is highlighted. Overall, the results obtained consistently show that the ethanol contributes the bulk of harmful effects of alcoholic beverages, while all other compounds only contribute in a minor fashion (less than 1% compared to ethanol). Our data provide compelling evidence that policy should be focused on reducing total alcohol intake (recorded and unrecorded), while measures on other compounds should be only secondary to this goal.
Keywords: alcohol; dose–response relationship; epidemiological methods; hepatotoxicity; margin of exposure; risk assessment.