The Hormetic Dose-Response Model: The Future Default Dose-Response Model in the Human Health Risk Assessment Paradigm

Abstract

Regulatory bodies such as the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) use the dose-response relationship as part of the risk assessment process to a particular environmental exposure. The dose-response relationship is important in determining how a government implements environmental risk assessment methods for protecting human and animal beings form food, water, air, and soil threats. The default dose-response for carinogens is the linear no threshold (LNT) dose-response model. However, a growing number of research studies illustrate the complexity of biological processes and mechanisms involved in mutagenesis, which are not easily explained by the LNT model. Since the LNT model sees any dose to be potentially carcinogenic, there is a growing interst in nonlinear dose-response relationships to explain certain phenomenon, such as the beneficial effects induced by low doses of particular chemicals that are harmful at higher doses. Hormesis, in particular, is a nonlinear dose-relationship model that is increasingly considered as a possible replacement to the LNT model. This report addresses whether or not the hormesis model is a viable replacement to the LNT model.

Keywords: risk assessment, EPA, environmental protection agency, hormesis, hormetic, carcinogenic, dose, response, linear non threshold, linear no threshold, toxicology

JEL Classification: I18