Proposal of New Health Risk Assessment Method for Deficient Essential Elements in Drinking Water—Case Study of the Slovak Republic

Abstract

The US EPA health risk assessment method is currently widely used to assess human health risks for many environmental constituents. It is used for risk assessment from the exposure to various contaminants exceeding tolerable or safe reference doses, determined e.g., for drinking water, soil, air and food. It accepts widely that excess contents of non-essential elements (e.g., As, Pb or Sb) in environmental compartments represent a general risk to human health. However, contrary to toxic trace elements, deficient contents of essential (biogenic) elements e.g., F, I, Se, Zn, Fe, Ca or Mg may represent even higher health risk. Therefore, we propose to extend the human health risk assessment by calculating the health risk for deficient content and intake of essential elements, and to introduce the terms Average Daily Missing Dose (ADMD), Average Daily Required Dose (ADRD) and Average Daily Accepted Dose (ADAD). We propose the following equation to calculate the Hazard Quotient (HQ) of health risk from deficient elements: HQd = ADRD/ADAD. At present, there are no reference concentrations or doses of essential elements in each environmental compartment in world databases (Integrated Risk Information System IRIS, The Risk Assessment Information System RAIS). ADRD and ADMD can be derived from different regulatory standards or guidelines (if they exist) or calculated from actual regional data on the state of population health and content of essential elements in the environment, e.g., in groundwater or soil. This methodology was elaborated and tested on inhabitants of the Slovak Republic supplied with soft drinking water with an average Mg content of 5.66 mg·L−1. The calculated ADMD of Mg for these inhabitants is 0.314 mg·kg−1·day−1 and HQd is equal to 2.94, indicating medium risk of chronic diseases. This method extending traditional health risk assessment is the first attempt to quantify deficient content of essential elements in drinking water. It still has some limitations but also has potential to be further developed and refined through its testing in other countries.

Enrichment of drinking water with Ca and Mg by a fluidized bed recarbonization reactor: a case study of Devičie, Slovak Republic

“…Table 1 shows that the values of the above-mentioned parameters are at the lower end of the regulated recommended values. Based on the risk analysis, an increased health risk from Ca and Mg deficiency and low hardness of water for the local population has been confirmed (Rapant et al 2019a(Rapant et al , 2019b(Rapant et al , 2020.…”

“…When their contents are low, the incidence/mortality of cardiovascular diseases increases very significantly but also of oncological diseases, diabetes mellitus, digestive and respiratory diseases and other diagnoses. In addition, the life expectancy of people supplied with drinking water of low Ca (less than 30 mg L À1 ) and Mg contents (less than 10 mg L À1 ) tends to be 5 years lower than that of people supplied with drinking water of high Ca (.50 mg L À1 ) and Mg contents (.25 mg L À1 ) (Rapant et al 2017(Rapant et al , 2020. This unfavorable condition could be modified by increasing the Ca and Mg contents in drinking water, by the process known as recarbonization (RC).…”

Relationship between regional longevity and elements in environmental media in China

“…Elements in environmental media are important substances to maintain the normal physiological needs and physiological functions of all organisms, and play an important role in human life [20] . In particular, the concentration level and combination characteristics of elements are one of the important factors affecting human life [21] . Many scholars have explored the relationship between elements in environmental media and longevity, and there is a certain correlation.…”