Hormesis is a biological phenomenon where exposure to a low dose of a stressor or toxin induces a beneficial adaptive response, whereas higher doses may have detrimental effects. The concept of hormesis is being increasingly appreciated not only in toxicology and in pharmacology, but also in nutrition, clinical medicine, and in situations involving everyday life. Hormesis is an adaptive response of cells and organisms to a moderate and intermittent stressful stimulation. Following such stimulation, the organism must respond, and it has to make a choice: either treat it as a positive ‘challenge’, adapting to it and increasing its robustness, or treat it as a negative ‘threat’ with detrimental consequences for physiology and health. In clinical and everyday situations it is usually difficult to advise patients on how to determine the strength of such stimulation, and when to decide that each new stimulation is too low (ineffective), moderate (appropriate for health), or excessive (damaging to health). In this paper we argue that it is possible to rely on the subjective feelings of ‘comfort vs discomfort’, for deciding about the strength of the stimulus: if each exposure to a stimulation is felt by the individual as a ’comfortable’ event, then it is likely that its effects are beneficial (a hormetic challenge). If it is felt as an ‘uncomfortable’ event, then it is likely that it is damaging to health (a threat). These feelings take place in the anterior insula which evaluates the state of resources for responding to an external or internal event, and are a result of the integration of signals from the amygdala, hippocampus, and the prefrontal cortex. Digital cognitive stimulation and nutritional hormesis are mentioned as two detailed examples.
The aim of this study was to assess the longitudinal association between lifestyle factors, mental ill-health indicators and activities of daily living (ADL) disability among ageing adults in Thailand. We analyzed the cohort data of participants (5616 in 2015, 3600 in 2017 and 2863 in 2020) over the age of 45 from three consecutive waves of HART (health, age, retirement) in Thailand. ADL disability was assessed with a 4-item ADL scale. In order to evaluate the longitudinal correlation between measurement of lifestyle factors, mental health indicators, and ADL disability between three survey waves, we conducted a Generalized Estimate Equation Analysis (GEE). The proportion of ADL disability increased from 3.8 % in 2015 to 7.0 % in 2020. In the final GEE logistic regression model, adjusted for various confounding factors, probable depression (aOR: 1.95, 95 % CI: 1.47–2.59), self-reported poor mental health (aOR: 1.28, 95 % CI: 1.45–2.27), poor quality of life/happiness (aOR: 1.28, 95 % CI: 1.03–1.61), loneliness (aOR: 1.66, 95 % CI: 1.33–2.08), brain disease/dementia (aOR: 4.84, 95 % CI: 2.70–8.67), physical inactivity (aOR: 6.91, 95 % CI: 4.41–10.84) and having underweight (AOR: 1.33, 95 % CI: 1.00–1.76) were positively associated with ADL disability. Current smoking (aOR: 0.39, 95 % CI: 0.24–0.64) was negatively associated with ADL disability.
We found that lifestyle factors (physical inactivity and having underweight) and loneliness, poor quality of life/happiness, probable depression, self-reported poor mental health, and brain disease/dementia were associated with ADL disability. Enhancing lifestyle factors relating to physical activity and healthy diet, and screening and treatment of mental ill-health indicators may reduce ADL disability in Thailand.
Glucose has been shown to shorten lifespan in Caenorhabditis elegans. The connection of glucose to stress resistance in C. elegans, however, appears to be complex. We have shown glucose to be protective against heat stress early in adulthood (1-day-old adults), in both wild-type (WT, N2 strain) animals and those with a mutation in the gene encoding the C. elegans insulin receptor, daf-2. The protection conferred by 1 day on high glucose continues in mid-life (7-day-old adults) for daf-2, but not for WT. Mid-life and late-life stress following 7 or 13 days on high glucose shows glucose enrichment to be neutral or detrimental for recovery from heat stress in both strains. These results were also observed for animals exposed to sorbitol instead of glucose, suggesting the osmotic stress conferred by high concentrations of carbohydrate to be the basis of the resistance to heat stress.