The purpose of this article is to provide the reader with a better understanding of radiation hormesis, the investigational research that supports or does not support the theory, and the relationship between the theory and current radiation safety guidelines and practices. The concept of radiation hormesis is known to nuclear medicine technologists, but understanding its complexities and the hi...

Change comes as a surprise because things do not happen in a straight line. Concepts often evolve haphazardly, reacting to specific events. Assumptions are made but are not challenged, sometimes for political or social expedience. It has long been recognized that the dose makes the poison. Concepts of the relationship evolved from both events and the availability of exploratory tools. There are...

It is well known that ionizing radiation is currently a very important way to create genetic variability that is not exists in nature or that is not available to the breeder (Ahloowalia & Maluszynski, 2001; Lemus et al., 2002). Therefore, there are many papers aimed to determine the best radiation dose to applied in plant breeding work. As a result it has been defined intervals gamma radiation ...

On June 23, 2015, the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) issued a formal notice in the Federal Register that it would consider whether "it should amend its 'Standards for Protection Against Radiation' regulations from the linear non-threshold (LNT) model of radiation protection to the hormesis model." The present commentary supports this recommendation based on the (1) flawed and deceptive ...

Many have argued that we may be able to extend life and improve human health through hormesis, the beneficial effects of low-level toxins and other stressors. But, studies of hormesis in model systems have not yet established whether stress-induced benefits are cost free, artifacts of inbreeding, or come with deleterious side effects. Here, we provide evidence that hormesis results in trade-off...

The idea of using hormesis for postponing aging and improving human health has been recently discussed in scientific literature. This paper shows that redundancy in renewal capacity, some portion of which become activated and manifested in hormesis effects, may originate as a result of interaction between living organisms and their environment. It is shown that such redundancy may normally exis...

Personal reflections on radiation hormesis for the past 50 years are presented. The causes of ignoring and rejections of this phenomenon by international and national bodies and by radiation protection establishment are analyzed. The opposition against nuclear weapons and preparations for nuclear war was probably the main factor in inducing the concern for adverse effects of low doses of ionizi...

This article provides a comprehensive review of hormesis, a dose-response concept that is characterized by a low-dose stimulation and a high-dose inhibition. The article traces the historical foundations of hormesis, its quantitative features and mechanistic foundations, and its risk assessment implications. The article indicates that the hormetic dose response is the most fundamental dose resp...

Suggesting a need for more research, Mr. Elliott argues that it is too soon for risk-assessment policy to account for recent challenges to a toxicological linear dose-response assumption.