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What is hormesis and its relevance to healthy aging and longevity?

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Abstract

This paper provides a broad overview of hormesis, a specific type of biphasic dose response, its historical and scientific foundations as well as its biomedical applications, especially with respect to aging. Hormesis is a fundamental component of adaptability, neutralizing many endogenous and environmental challenges by toxic agents, thereby enhancing survival. Hormesis is highly conserved, broadly generalizable, and pleiotrophic, being independent of biological model, endpoint measured, inducing agent, level of biological organization and mechanism. The low dose stimulatory hormetic response has specific characteristics which defines both the quantitative features of biological plasticity and the potential for maximum biological performance, thereby estimating the limits to which numerous medical and pharmacological interventions may affect humans. The substantial degrading of some hormetic processes in the aged may profoundly reduce the capacity to respond effectively to numerous environmental/ischemic and other stressors leading to compromised health, disease and, ultimately, defining the bounds of longevity.

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Notes

  1. More recently, the term “hormetin” has been introduced to describe an agent that can induce some molecular damage, which then induces cellular stress responses as a defense mechanism (Demirovic and Rattan 2011; Rattan 2012). This definition is derived from the overcompensation stimulation feature of the hormetic dose response.

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Acknowledgments

Long-term research activities in the area of dose response have been supported by awards from the US Air Force and ExxonMobil Foundation over a number of years. The U.S. Government is authorized to reproduce and distribute for governmental purposes notwithstanding any copyright notation thereon. The views and conclusions contained herein are those of the authors and should not be interpreted as necessarily representing policies or endorsement, either expressed or implied. Sponsors had no involvement in study design, collection, analysis, interpretation, writing and decision to submit.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Environmental Health Sciences, Morrill I, N344, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, MA, 01003, USA

    Edward J. Calabrese

  2. Environmental Health and Safety, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, MA, 01003, USA

    Gaurav Dhawan

  3. Saint Barnabas Medical Center, 94 Old Short Hills Road, Livingston, NJ, 07039, USA

    Rachna Kapoor

  4. Section of Occupational Medicine, Institute of Public Health, Catholic University of Sacred Heart, Largo Francesco Vito 1, 00168, Rome, Italy

    Ivo Iavicoli

  5. Department of Biomedical & Biotechnological Sciences; School of Medicine, University of Catania, Viale Andrea Doria/6, 95125, Catania, Italy

    Vittorio Calabrese

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  1. Edward J. Calabrese
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Correspondence to Edward J. Calabrese.

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Calabrese, E.J., Dhawan, G., Kapoor, R. et al. What is hormesis and its relevance to healthy aging and longevity?. Biogerontology 16, 693–707 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10522-015-9601-0

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