Abstract

Hormesis is “chemical and environmental factors having a beneficial effect to cells in an organism at low doses, whereas they are damaging at high doses”. The factors that trigger stress response pathways hormetically called as hormetin. Hormetins can be classified as physical hormetins (exercise, thermal shock and irrigation), psychological hormetins (mental interrogation and focusing), biological and nutritional hormetins (infections, nutrients, energy restriction) [1-4]. At molecular level stress response in mammalian cells can be classified as heat shock response, unfolded protein response, autophagic response, deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) repair response, antioxidant response, sirtuin response and nuclear factor-kappa B (NF-κB) inflammatory response. Hormetins trigger these pathways thus strength the cell. According to this, body can improve its defensive system and retarding age-related chronic diseases such as neurodegenerative diseases, cardiovascular diseases, cancer, etc.