Anti-aging Drugs: From Basic Research to Clinical Practice
CHAPTER 7: Hormetins as Drugs for Healthy Aging
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Published:18 Jan 2017
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Special Collection: 2017 ebook collection
Suresh I. S. Rattan, 2017. "Hormetins as Drugs for Healthy Aging", Anti-aging Drugs: From Basic Research to Clinical Practice, Alexander M Vaiserman
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A promising strategy for anti-aging interventions is that of mild stress-induced hormesis. The consequences of stress can be either harmful or beneficial depending on the intensity, duration and frequency of the stress. Biological stress response (SR) is not linear with respect to the dose of the stressor. SR is characterized by a nonlinear biphasic relationship. Meta-analyses performed on a large number of papers published within toxicology, pharmacology, medicine, and radiation biology have revealed that the dose–response curve is neither linear nor threshold-based linear.1 Instead, the shape of the dose response curve is U- or inverted U-shaped, depending on the endpoint being measured. This phenomenon of biphasic dose response was termed as hormesis in the early 1940s.2 The terminology for hormesis has been expanded to specify the nature of the hormetic responses, such as physiological hormesis, pre-conditioning hormesis, and post-exposure conditioning hormesis.3 Therefore, any condition that is potentially hormetic in terms of providing biological benefits through the process of hormesis is termed as a hormetin.4,5 Exercise is one of the best-known examples of a hormetin.