Health effects of hazardous factors in the environment and the risk assessment

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The four studies were carried out to clarify human health effects of chronic low-level exposures to hazardous factors in the environment. (1) To assess the neuromotor impact of trichloroethylene objectively, static postural sway and hand tremor parameters, along with urinary trichloroethanol and trichloroacetic acid levels, were investigated in 57 workers without obvious neurological disorders and 60 control subjects. (2) To assess the chronic effect of organophosphorus insecticides in the environment, the urinary dialkylphosphate concentrations and outcome parameters such as cardiac autonomic nervous and neuromotor functions were examined in 339 Japanese adults who were engaged in the food distribution, apple farming and pest control operation. (3) To examine whether the critical level of lead producing adverse effects truly differs between workers and children, an overview of studies addressing the critical level of lead in workers, along with a perspective on lead toxicity in children, was provided by using available data chosen from PubMed. (4) The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) recommended that the benchmark dose (BMD) approach, as an alternative to the traditionally used no-observed-adverse-effect level approach, be used as the method of choice for the determination of the reference point for deriving health-based guidance values and margins of exposure. As a result, by using the BMD approach recommended by the EFSA, human health safety may be better guaranteed because of the lower reference points for hazardous substances. However, its application to epidemiological data does not always reflect toxicological implications in light of the clinical standard.