I address and explain the increased risk of adverse effects from nutrients by using the paradigm of hormesis, the biological and toxicological concept that small quantities have opposite effects from large quantities. To provide necessary background, I categorize, depict, discuss, and contrast hormetic and other dose-response relations. I review some of the different hormetic mechanisms that ot...

Application of hormesis in aging research and interventions is becoming increasingly attractive and successful. The reason for this is the realization that mild stress-induced activation of one or more stress response (SR) pathways, and its consequent stimulation of repair mechanisms, is effective in reducing the age-related accumulation of molecular damage. For example, repeated heat stress-in...

Evidence of health benefits and longer average life-span following low-dose irradiation should replace fear, “all radiation is harmful,” and “the perception of harm” as the basis for action in the 21 century. Hormesis is the excitation, or stimulation, by small doses of any agent in any system. Large doses inhibit. “Low dose” is defined as any dose between ambient levels of radiation and the th...

Hormesis is a concept of biphasic dose–response to different toxicological and pharmacological stimuli. According to this concept, a noxious agent at a small dose can exert a beneficial action. Among the known hormetic agents are pro-oxidants, heavy metals, heat, radiation, exercise, food restriction and different kinds of stress. All these agents are present in the environment so that the horm...

The concept of radiation-induced hormesis, whereby a low dose is beneficial and high detrimental, has been gaining attention in the fields molecular biology, environmental toxicology radiation biology. There growing body literature that recognises importance hormetic response not only field, but also with agents. However, there continuing debate on magnitude mechanism response, which could make...

Single or multiple exposures to mild stress at younger ages often have positive health beneficial effects throughout life, indicating that rescue systems turned on at a young age can be effective even in old age (e.g. Le Bourg 2011). This seems to be at variance with the notion of the so-called trade-offs that due to a limitation of resources it is impossible for an organism to increase all asp...

Policy implementation of hormesis has to date focused on regulatory applications. Toxic-tort litigation may provide an alternative policy venue for real-world applications of hormesis. Businesses and government entities, who are sued by individuals claiming to have been injured by exposure to very low levels of toxic substances may defend those cases by deploying hormesis to argue that such exp...

Aging is characterized by stochastic accumulation of molecular damage, progressive failure of maintenance and repair, and consequent onset of age-related diseases. Applying hormesis in aging research and therapy is based on the principle of stimulation of maintenance and repair pathways by repeated exposure to mild stress. Studies on the beneficial biological effects of repeated mild heat shock...

We discuss the similarities and differences of two types of effects that occur at low but not high doses of chemicals: hormesis and stimulation by oestrogenic endocrine-disrupting chemicals or xenoestrogens. While hormesis is a general phenomenon evoked by many compounds, oestrogenic stimulation occurs for specific chemicals that disrupt actions of endogenous oestrogen. Both types of phenomena ...

This paper examines the underlying factors that contributed to the marginalization of radiation hormesis in the early and middle decades of the 20th century. The most critical factor affecting the demise of radiation hormesis was a lack of agreement over how to define the concept of hormesis and quantitatively describe its dose-response features. If radiation hormesis had been defined as a mode...