Dietary Hazard Index for Food (Hdiet)

This page hosts the software for the Dietary Hazard Index for Food (Hdiet) calculator.

The Hdiet was developed to address a methodological gap in radiological food screening. Radioactivity in food is still often evaluated using indices originally designed for building materials, such as Raeq, Hex, and Hin. These indices are based on external gamma exposure and radon-related assumptions, which do not represent the ingestion pathway. In food, the relevant quantity is the committed effective dose from radionuclide intake, governed by gastrointestinal absorption, biokinetics, retention, and radioactive decay within the body.

The Hdiet provides a food-specific screening tool that converts measured radionuclide activity concentrations into a fraction of an annual committed effective dose constraint. The calculation combines ICRP ingestion dose coefficients, a reference annual food consumption value, and an explicit dietary-fraction parameter f, which defines how much of the total diet is represented by the screened food. A value of f = 1 corresponds to a conservative single-commodity screen, while f = 0.1 reproduces the Codex Alimentarius trade assumption.

Unlike traditional building-material indices, Hdiet deliberately excludes K-40. Although K-40 may dominate the activity concentration of plant-based foods, body potassium is regulated by homeostasis, so the internal dose from K-40 is essentially independent of dietary potassium intake. Including K-40 in an ingestion-based hazard index would therefore attribute to a food a dose that does not actually vary with consumption.

• Acess the Hdiet  Calculator v1.0 online here

• Download the Hdiet  Calculator v1.0 here (via Google Drive) or here (via Zenodo)

Note: Windows may display a security warning when running the desktop version if the executable is unsigned or downloaded from the internet. Before running the program, make sure it was downloaded from one of the official links above.

Collaboration and feedback 

This project is a continuing effort. Feel free to reach out if you have new ideas on how to improve the program/methodology, suggestions for enhancements, or an interest in collaboration.

How to cite this work

If you use the Hdiet software or its methodology in your research, please cite the following publications:

1. Faria da Silva, L. da, Almeida, E. L., Thalhofer, J. L., Orejuela, C. O. P., Silva, L. B. da, & Silva, A. X. da. (2026). Composition of natural radionuclides, toxic metals, and oxides in traditional biodiversity-sourced flours: radiological risk assessment and development of the Radiological Benefit-Risk Index for Foods (IRBRF). Food Chemistry. 520, Article 149707. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.foodchem.2026.149707

2. Faria da Silva, L., Barbosa da Silva, L., Vendramini, A. L. do A., Pastrana Orejuela, C. O., Thalhofer, J. L., Barreto Júnior, A. G., Corrêa Barbosa Lima, I., & Xavier da Silva, A. (2025). Intra-plant radionuclides distribution in cocoa and nuts: Implications for dietary risk assessment. Journal of Food Composition and Analysis, 148(1), 108130. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jfca.2025.108130

3. Faria da Silva, L., Barbosa da Silva, L., Dutra Garcez, R. W., Fernandes, T. S., Lopes, J. M., Mello, C. R., Kuster de Souza Paiva, A., & Xavier da Silva, A. (2022). An assessment of committed effective dose and lifetime cancer risk due to the ingestion of infant milk. Applied Radiation and Isotopes, 190, 110468. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.apradiso.2022.110468

Citing this papers ensures the reproducibility of your results and supports the continued development and maintenance of the Hdiet project. Beyond reproducibility, citations allow us to track how the index is being applied, enabling the identification of potential improvements, bug fixes, and methodological refinements. Also, as academic funding and opportunities are closely tied to citation metrics, your support directly contributes to the advancement of Radioecology and Environmental Radiation as research fields. We appreciate your support in giving visibility to research in radioecology.