Tiered intake assessment for propylene glycol in beverages

A tiered intake assessment approach is presented and applied to derive estimates of maximum potential global propylene glycol (PG) intake from beverage sources. The US and UK markets served as surrogates for the world and the EU region, respectively, to determine the maximum potential exposure for PG in various subpopulations, including brand-loyal consumers. Conservative intake estimates for PG used in non-alcoholic beverages were calculated for toddlers less than 3 years (y), young children 3-9 y, adolescents 10-17 y, adults 18-64 y, elderly 65-74 y, very elderly 75+ y, based on assumed uses in high beverage consumption markets, leveraging either the 2-day food consumption data from the 2013–2016 US National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey or the 4-day food consumption data from the 2008-2017 UK National Diet and Nutrition Survey Rolling Programme. This study shows that safety of PG in beverages at proposed use levels up to 3,000 mg kg−1 can be supported for any geography, based not only on a refined budget method approach but also on a refined deterministic approach when applying the proposed safe intake (pADI) of 62.5 mg kg bw−1 day−1. In all refined assessments, intake estimates across all age groups fell close to or well below the pADI even among high consumers at the 95th percentile.