Kitchin Kirk T, Drane J Wanzer
Environmental Carcinogenesis Division National Health and Environmental Effects Research Laboratory, US Environmental Protection Agency, Research Triangle Park, NC 27711, USA.
Hum Exp Toxicol. 2005 May;24(5):249-53. doi: 10.1191/0960327105ht520oa.
There are severe problems and limitations with the use of hormesis as the principal dose-response default assumption in risk assessment. These problems and limitations include: (a) unknown prevalence of hormetic dose-response curves; (b) random chance occurrence of hormesis and the shortage of data on the repeatability of hormesis; (c) unknown degree of generalizability of hormesis; (d) there are dose-response curves that are not hormetic, therefore hormesis cannot be universally generalized; (e) problems of post hoc rather than a priori hypothesis testing; (f) a possible large problem of 'false positive' hormetic data sets which have not been extensively replicated; (g) the 'mechanism of hormesis' is not understood at a rigorous scientific level; (h) in some cases hormesis may merely be the overall sum of many different mechanisms and many different dose-response curves - some beneficial and some toxic. For all of these reasons, hormesis should not now be used as the principal dose-response default assumption in risk assessment. At this point, it appears that hormesis is a long way away from common scientific acceptance and wide utility in biomedicine and use as the principal default assumption in a risk assessment process charged with ensuring public health protection.
将兴奋效应作为风险评估中主要的剂量反应默认假设存在严重问题和局限性。这些问题和局限性包括：(a) 兴奋剂量反应曲线的流行程度未知；(b) 兴奋效应的随机偶然发生以及兴奋效应可重复性数据的短缺；(c) 兴奋效应的普遍适用程度未知；(d) 存在非兴奋型的剂量反应曲线，因此兴奋效应不能被普遍推广；(e) 事后而非先验假设检验的问题；(f) 未经广泛重复验证的 “假阳性” 兴奋效应数据集可能存在的大问题；(g) “兴奋效应机制” 在严格的科学层面上尚未被理解；(h) 在某些情况下，兴奋效应可能仅仅是许多不同机制和许多不同剂量反应曲线的总和 —— 有些是有益的，有些是有毒的。基于所有这些原因，目前不应将兴奋效应用作风险评估中主要的剂量反应默认假设。在这一点上，兴奋效应似乎离被科学界普遍接受以及在生物医学中的广泛应用还有很长的路要走，也远不能作为旨在确保公众健康保护的风险评估过程中的主要默认假设。
