Stochastic health effects are those that occur by chance, and whose probability is proportional to the dose, but whose severity is independent of the dose. The LNT model assumes there is no lower threshold at which stochastic effects start, and assumes a linear relationship between dose and the stochastic health risk. In other words, LNT assumes that radiation has the potential to cause harm at "any" dose level, however small, and the sum of several very small exposures is just as likely to cause a stochastic health effect as a single larger exposure of equal dose value. In contrast, deterministic health effects are radiation-induced effects such as acute radiation syndrome, which are caused by tissue damage. Deterministic effects reliably occur above a threshold dose and their severity increases with dose. Because of the inherent differences, LNT is not a model for deterministic effects, which are instead characterized by other types of dose-response relationships.