HORMESIS-ONE
MAN’S MEAT IS ANOTHER MAN’S POISON.
Prof. B. M. Hegde
“The art of research is the art of
the possible.”
Peter Medawar.
Hormesis
is the stimulation of any system by small doses of an agent which, in the
larger doses, harms the same system. Hormesis (hormo. in Greek= I excite) is a
very important concept in science but, had been killed in its bud by the
powerful people in science. Even a poison in small doses could benefit the
human system. Hormesis is related to the word hormone, the chemical that
stimulates many organ functions in the human body. Scientists think that Nature
is foolish but, in fact, nature is there to see that mankind and all other
living creatures survive despite the environment being hostile, many times. The
concept of hormesis is one of the reasons why homeopathic medicines work in many
minor illness syndromes. In fact, modern medicine benefited from homeopathy in
the discovery of nitrates in the treatment of anginal pain. In homeopathy
nitrates were used to treat headaches in small doses. Incidentally, nitrates
reduced chest pain of angina in a patient who was taking the drug to relieve
headache in the first place. Nitrates, in small doses, have the hormetic effect
on headache while they bring on severe headaches in some patients when given in
the “therapeutic doses” of modern medicine. One man’s poison could be another
man’s meat.
Small
doses of any drug possess a bio-positive
effect while the large dose of the same compound has the opposite bio-negative effect. In short, all drugs
have opposite effects in two dose extremes. (See figure 2) The young scientist
that worked on this hypothesis for his PhD under the famous Stanford
immunologist, George Fegan, to show that vitamin C could be dangerous in bigger
doses while it is a stimulant and good for the health in very small doses never
made it and had to leave science research altogether because Linus Pauling, the
great hero of science, destroyed the young scientist completely. It was Pauling
himself that had induced Fegan to work on the good effects of vitamin C on the
immune system in the first place. The hormetic effect of vitamin C could not be
swallowed by Pauling. Pauling could never agree with vitamin C being poisonous
in larger doses! Later he fought an expensive legal battle against his own
colleague, a former Director of the Pauling Institute, for showing that cancer
growth is stimulated by vitamin C in larger doses, but Pauling lost the battle
and was disgraced.
Pauling
got the second Nobel (Peace) Prize, after his first for the discovery of
vitamin C, by the same antipathy towards hormesis. Edward Teller was the father
of American Nuclear deterrent against the communists. While Teller was testing
atomic weapons, he showed the hormetic effect of radiation by accident. In very
small doses radiation stimulates the immune system and increases human life
span, radiation hormesis. It also slows the ageing processes by the hormetic
effect of working as an anti-oxidant.
This has been confirmed by the recent evidence that cancer incidence is
less in areas around atomic plants as compared to normal populations.
The
famous Teller-Pauling debates that followed took the whole of America by
surprise. Pauling succeeded in demonizing Teller to the extent that the Swedish
Nobel Academy gave Pauling the Nobel Peace Prize, his second Nobel! There are
many such frauds that have occurred in science but, ordinary mortals do not
come to know of them. Scientists have built such a great aura around them and
the halo is so large that there are many who swear by the accuracy of science
while the theta and delta faults make a mockery of most reductionist scientific
discoveries. However the technology
industry has become a big money spinner and that feeds society with the myth
about science. The recent study that daily intake of vitamins harms in the long
run while fruits and vegetables help the human system greatly could be
understood by the hormetic effect of vitamin C shown in the figure 2 below.
Small doses, usually found in fruits and vegetables, have a bio-positive effect
while the larger doses help the squamous cell carcinoma by their bio-negative
role.
The
world famous Misasa hot springs that are known for their disease curing effects
emanate radon waves in very small doses-the radium decay products. Radon, in
small doses, found around the Misasa springs, produced by the hot water fumes
coming out of the spring waters there, stimulates the body’s immune system.
Since radon can not penetrate human skin, the fumes here are breathed in by the
tourists and patients who go there. Radon, when it enters the human body
through the lungs, works efficiently as an anti-oxidant through the super-oxide
desmutase system. The Mesasa springs are famous for curing auto-immune diseases
like rheumatoid arthritis.
In
an earlier article I had shown how eating fruits and vegetables, unlike daily
intake of multivitamins, is health promoting. One could understand the
scientific rationale behind this if one realizes the hermetic effect of all the
vitamins, both water soluble and fat soluble ones. Modern medical therapeutics
could learn a lesson or two from the hormetic concept. The human body responds
in a non-linear fashion in any situation. Linear systems do not work in the
human body. We have to rethink our dose response curves in pharmacology. Let me
remind the reader that well over 150,000 people die every year in the US alone
due to unforeseen drug side effects. Understanding hormesis could reduce this
burden significantly.
The
one man who has worked very hard on this hormetic concept is Professor Edward
Calabrese of the University of Massachusetts. This concept would take away the
sail from many groups fighting against environmental pollution. Whereas it is true that heavily polluted
environment is bad for human health some degree of pollution is inevitable in
the modern day world. Extremism in any field has harmful effects on humanity.
If we want one hundred per cent pollution free environment, we should be
prepared to go back to the Stone Age. Even there people did have background
radiation hazards that kept them alive, I suppose. Nature knows best. “What an
ingenious medley is Nature’s: if our faces were not alike, we could not tell
man from beast: if they were not unlike we could not tell man from man.,” wrote
Michel de Montaigne.
Even
the stones in the Stone Age did emanate small doses of radon with the sun
shining on them. This might have prolonged human life span then! Similarly,
most chemical poisons, in very small doses, work as anti-oxidants, as shown
above. I must hasten to add that this knowledge should not mislead the greedy
multinational companies to pollute the globe heavily with their greed for
profits and their proclivity for comfort. It is only when man poisons the last
river, cuts the last tree, and chemically loads the last bit of earth would he
realize that money can not be eaten to survive. Moderation in everything makes
life happier. Small IS beautiful as
Schumacher had shown. Fanaticism leads to terrorism. Many times it is the
intellectual terrorism that is more dangerous than the weapons of mass
destruction kind of terrorism, like the one reported above about the (in)
famous Linus Pauling.
“It is the
scientific performance rather than the scientific conception that tends to
bewilder the lay public.”
Peter Medawar, in The Limits of Science, 1986.