title: Estimates of Ethanol Exposure in Children from Food not Labeled as Alcohol-Containing.
abstract: Ethanol is widely used in herbal medicines, e.g., for children. Furthermore, alcohol is a constituent of fermented food such as bread or yogurt and "non-fermented" food such as fruit juices. At the same time, exposure to very low levels of ethanol in children is discussed as possibly having adverse effects on psychomotoric functions. Here, we have analyzed alcohol levels in different food products from the German market. It was found that orange, apple and grape juice contain substantial amounts of ethanol (up to 0.77 g/L). Furthermore, certain packed bakery products such as burger rolls or sweet milk rolls contained more than 1.2 g ethanol/100 g. We designed a scenario for average ethanol exposure by a 6-year-old child. Consumption data for the "categories" bananas, bread and bakery products and apple juice were derived from US and German surveys. An average daily exposure of 10.3 mg ethanol/kg body weight (b.w.) was estimated. If a high (acute) consumption level was assumed for one of the "categories," exposure rose to 12.5-23.3 mg/kg b.w. This amount is almost 2-fold (average) or up to 4-fold (high) higher than the lowest exposure from herbal medicines (6 mg/kg b.w.) suggested to require warning hints for the use in children.
authors.affiliation: Food Chemistry and Toxicology, University of Kaiserslautern, Erwin-Schroedinger-Strasse 52, D-67663 Kaiserslautern, Germany.
authors.forename: Eva
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Gorgus
authors.affiliation: Food Chemistry and Toxicology, University of Kaiserslautern, Erwin-Schroedinger-Strasse 52, D-67663 Kaiserslautern, Germany.
authors.forename: Maike
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Hittinger
authors.affiliation: Food Chemistry and Toxicology, University of Kaiserslautern, Erwin-Schroedinger-Strasse 52, D-67663 Kaiserslautern, Germany schrenk@rhrk.uni-kl.de.
authors.forename: Dieter
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Schrenk
mesh_terms: D002648:Child; D004781:Environmental Exposure / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D000431:Ethanol; D005502:Food; D006801:Humans; D010936:Plant Extracts
chemical_list: D010936:Plant Extracts; D000431:Ethanol