Abstract
BackgroundMethanol is highly toxic to human beings and naturally exists in some beverages. Having access to an easy and cheap method for its determination is of great importance to increase the safety of use of these beverages. Our main aim is to evaluate methanol concentration of some alcoholic beverages in Iran black market and compare it with the European and US standards. Also, we evaluated the efficacy of a newly designed and produced chemical kit in determining the risk of methanol toxicity by drinking of such samples compared to gas chromatography method.MethodsMethanol content of suspected alcoholic beverages referred to forensic toxicology laboratory, Guilan province, Iran was measured using gas chromatography and a recently designed kit based on modified colorimetric chromotropic acid method.ResultsOf 1221 samples, 145 (11.9%) had no ethanol content, while in three samples (0.25%), methanol was high enough (700,000; 870,000; 920,000 mg/L) to cause severe methanol toxicity. Median [IQR] ethanol content of the suspected samples was 9% [3.7, 32.75]. Methanol was detected in 128 (10.48%) samples using gas chromatography method and 160 samples (13.1%) with designed kit with 100% sensitivity, 97.07% specificity, and 100% negative-predictive-value.ConclusionsAlcoholic beverages produced in local black market in Iran are not safe at all. The application of the new method is practical, rapid, easy, and accurate to evaluate the risk of methanol toxicity in suspected alcoholic drinks.
Highlights
Toxic alcohol consumption is a major cause of mortalities and morbidities worldwide [1]
During the process of quality control of production of such beverages, it is generally important to be able to determine the presence of sufficient methanol concentration capable of resulting in poisoning
Between March 2017 and May 2018, Guilan office, Legal Medicine Organization (LMO) analyzed the methanol and ethanol contents of more than one-thousand suspected alcoholic beverage samples referred by police using a gas chromatography apparatus (Yanglin model: YL 6100 -South Korea)
Summary
Toxic alcohol consumption is a major cause of mortalities and morbidities worldwide [1]. A large portion of this consumption – 28.6% or 1.76 l per person – was homemade, illegally produced or sold outside normal government controls [1]. This increases the risk of introduction of hazardous chemicals into the ethanol, the most important of which is methanol [5]. We evaluated the efficacy of a newly designed and produced chemical kit in determining the risk of methanol toxicity by drinking of such samples compared to gas chromatography method
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