Year: 2003
Type: article
Abstract: The concept of hormesis, the stimulatory or adaptive responses to low doses, and nonlinear dose effects are becoming a more prominent and accepted concepts in toxicology and risk assessment (Calabrese, 2003). While many have contributed to the concepts in hormesis, its recent prominence is largely attributable to the detailed and extensive assessment of low-dose effects compiled by Ed Calabrese and Linda Baldwin.
The road to the acceptance of hormesis has been a long and hard one. Most toxicologists have rejected the concept outright as irrelevant or simply ignored it or have simply been ignorant of the literature. The discovery that hormetic effects are evident in over 40% of all studies that meet the criteria for its existence, and that the effects are seen across toxins and phyla have indicated that low-dose stimulatory effects need to be seriously considered in toxicology and biology (Calabrese and Baldwin, 2001).
However, what about clinical medicine? Hormesis is not as prominent a concept in pharmacology and medicine as the title of this journal would indicate. Why is this? Is the concept of hormesis something only of value in toxicology and risk assessment or are there wider implications? To answer this question I suggest that those interested in hormesis examine two areas of potential value — one area is new and largely unexamined, and the second is old and controversial. In examining these areas we should use research and data as the discerning factors and not make the mistake of a priori rejection like others have applied to hormesis and that set it back for so long.
The first area is to examine if low-dose toxins can stimulate reparative processes such that they can used in the treatment of disease. The second is to examine the effects of very low and ultralow dose stimulatory effects. Two articles in this issue of Non-linearity in Biology, Toxicology and Medicine allow us to comment on these areas.
Author: Wayne B. Jonas
Institution: Samueli Institute
Language: English
Subfield: Radiology, Nuclear Medicine and Imaging
Field: Medicine
Domain: Health Sciences
Open Access status: hybrid
OpenAlex ID: W2127081113