In particular, SNPs in ALDH1A2 could have a role in retinoic acid synthesis, which could affect cancer survival per se and in conjunction with alcohol,38 and we note that the ALDH1B1 SNP is in close proximity to IGFBPL1, which may encode a putative tumour suppressor protein.51 However, there were no other associations of these SNPs, or others in LD with them, reported by the catalogue of published genome‐wide association studies (http://www.ebi.ac.uk/gwas/); therefore the risk of pleiotropy for the genetic variants under study here is likely to be small. Here, IGFBPL1 is linked to cancer.