Health Benefits of Exposure to Low-dose Radiation

Although there is no doubt that exposure to high doses of radiation (delivered at a high dose-rate) induces harmful effects, the health risks and benefits of exposure to low levels (delivered at a low dose-rate) of toxic agents is still a challenging public health issue. There has been a considerable amount of published data against the linear no-threshold (LNT) model for assessing risk of cancers induced by radiation. The LNT model for risk assessment creates "radiophobia," which is a serious public health issue. It is now time to move forward to a paradigm shift in health risk assessment of low-dose exposure by taking the differences between responses to low and high doses into consideration. Moreover, future research directed toward the identification of mechanisms associated with responses to low-dose radiation is critically needed to fully understand their beneficial effects.