Influence of unrecorded alcohol consumption on liver cirrhosis mortality
Open accessAbstract
Unrecorded alcohol includes illegally distributed alcohol as well as homemade or surrogate alcohol which is unintended for consumption by humans (e.g., cosmetics containing alcohol). The highest unrecorded alcohol consumption occurs in Eastern Europe and some of these countries have an over proportional liver cirrhosis mortality. Compounds besides ethanol have been hypothesized as being responsible for this observation. On the other hand, chemical investigations were unable to prove that unrecorded alcohol regularly contains contaminants above toxicological thresholds. However, illegally produced spirits regularly contain higher percentages of alcohol (above 45% by volume), but for considerably less costs compared with licit beverages, potentially causing more problematic patterns of drinking. In this review, it is investigated whether patterns of drinking rather than product composition can explain the liver cirrhosis mortality rates. Statistical examination of World Health Organization country data shows that the originally detected correlation of the percentage of unrecorded alcohol consumption and liver cirrhosis mortality rates disappears when the data is adjusted for the prevalence of heavy episodic drinking. It may be concluded that there is currently a lack of data to demonstrate causality between the composition of illicit spirits (e.g., higher levels of certain contaminants in home-produced products) and liver toxicity on a population scale. Exceptions may be cases of poisoning with antiseptic liquids containing compounds such as polyhexamethyleneguanidine, which were reported to be consumed as surrogate alcohol in Russia, leading to an outbreak of acute cholestatic liver injury, histologically different from conventional alcoholic liver disease.
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The overall conclusion of relevant reviews has been that there is not sufficient evidence to link a sizable portion of liver cirrhosis mortality to unrecorded alcohol.
“the overall conclusion of relevant reviews has been that there is not sufficient evidence to link a sizable portion of liver cirrhosis mortality to unrecorded alcohol (290, 291; see also 292).”
From The relationship between different dimensions of alcohol use and the burden of disease—an update (2017) · cites this paper as [291]
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The relationship between different dimensions of alcohol use and the burden of disease—an update
Rehm, J., Gmel, G. E., Gmel, G., Hasan, O. S. M., Imtiaz, S., Popova, S., Probst, C., Roerecke, M., Room, R., Samokhvalov, A. V., et al. (2017) · Addiction · doi:10.1111/add.13757 · Cited by 1,204 · see citing works
- Authors
- Lachenmeier, D. W.
- Affiliations
- Technische Universität Dresden (DE)
- Corresponding author
- Lachenmeier, Dirk W
- ORCID
- Lachenmeier, Dirk W
- Venue
- World Journal of Gastroenterology
- Publisher
- Baishideng Publishing Group Inc.
- Published
- 2014
- Volume
- 20
- Issue
- 23
- Pages
- 7217
- ISSN
- 1007-9327 (ISSN-L)
- PMC
- PMC4064067
- OpenAlex
- W2066359333
- Cited by
- 39
- References
- 27
- Citations by year
- 2025: 1 · 2023: 3 · 2022: 11 · 2021: 2 · 2020: 6 · 2019: 6 · 2018: 2 · 2017: 4 · 2016: 1 · 2015: 2
- FWCI
- 1.73
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- hybrid
- doi.org
- Licence
- cc-by-nc
- Locations
- World Journal of Gastroenterology (publishedVersion, cc-by-nc)
- Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (publishedVersion)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- World Journal of Gastroenterology
- Funders
- European Association for the Study of the Liver
- Topics
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Pathology and Forensic Medicine › Alcohol Consumption and Health Effects
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Epidemiology › Substance Abuse Treatment and Outcomes
- Life Sciences › Pharmacology, Toxicology and Pharmaceutics › Toxicology › Forensic Toxicology and Drug Analysis
- Keywords
- unrecorded alcohol consumption, cirrhosis mortality, binge drinking, cholestatic liver injury, drinking patterns, Eastern Europe
- MeSH terms
- Alcohol Drinking, Ethanol, Alcoholic Beverages, Cause of Death, Humans, Liver Cirrhosis, Alcoholic, Risk Factors, Prevalence, Risk Assessment
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