Hormesis And Medicine: Biphasic Dose-Response Relationship

The 2008 document presents the concept of hormesis in medicine, which is a biphasic dose-response relationship where low doses of a substance stimulate a beneficial effect and high doses inhibit or are toxic. It provides evidence that this model is a fundamental and common response across various biological models, endpoints, and inducing agents, suggesting it is an adaptive mechanism. Hormesis has been observed in a wide range of medical applications, including anxiety, seizure, memory, stroke, cancer chemotherapy, hair growth, osteoporosis, ocular diseases, cardiovascular function, tumor development, prostate enlargement, sexual dysfunctions, and prion diseases. The hormetic zone typically shows a 30-60% stimulatory response above control levels within a 100-fold range of the zero equivalent point. The paper discusses the implications for interindividual variation in drug responses and the potential to constrain performance improvement from drug treatments, challenging traditional beliefs about dose-response relationships and potentially impacting study design, clinical trials, and dosing strategies.