MULTIFACTORIAL HORMESIS AN IMPORTANT CONTEXT FOR HEALTH AND LONGEVITY ON THE ROAD TO A GRAND UNIFIED THEORY (GUT) FOR BIOLOGY Presentation by: Vincent E. Giuliano, Ph.D. Agingsciences.com Investigating the Future of Medicine Symposium and Webcast Hawaii institute for Molecular Communications March 16, 2013 PART 1
MULTIFACTORIAL HORMESIS. PART 1. AN IMPORTANT CONTEXT FOR HEALTH AND LONGEVITY ON THE ROAD TO A GRAND UNIFIED THEORY (GUT) FOR BIOLOGY. Investigating the Future of Medicine Symposium and Webcast Hawaii institute for Molecular Communications March 16, 2013. Presentation by: - PowerPoint PPT Presentation
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MULTIFACTORIAL HORMESIS
AN IMPORTANT CONTEXT FOR HEALTH AND LONGEVITY
ON THE ROAD TO A GRAND UNIFIED THEORY (GUT) FOR BIOLOGY
Presentation by:Vincent E. Giuliano, Ph.D.Agingsciences.com
Investigating the Future of MedicineSymposium and WebcastHawaii institute for Molecular CommunicationsMarch 16, 2013
1. Hormesis is a phenomenon in biology involving stress-responses of a biological organism, system or subsystem.
2. Hormesis is found universally in biology, applying wherever there is stress. It is an essential characteristics of the biological networks making us up
3. Hormesis is exploited in extremely important existing health-producing applications
4. Hormesis has important general properties
Major points: Based on current understanding involving disparate bodies of research:
6. Hormesis is a very useful framework for guiding and organizing health-oriented research
7. There are well-studied molecular pathways that produce hormesis.
8. Hormesis is a requirement of evolution and the systems dynamic nature of biological entities
9. Hormesis is likely a key component of an emerging grand unified theory of biology
Major points (continued)
MULTIFACTORIAL HORMESIS TOPICS
Presentation by:Vincent E. Giuliano, Ph.D.Agingsciences.com
Introduction to hormesis Some-familiar examples of hormesis Hormesis and aging Hormesis pathways General properties of hormesis Hormesis and dietary substances Hormesis as part of a Grand Unified Theory for
biology
“While physics is infinitely deep,” “biology is infinitely complex”
Understanding such loops and how we can affect their operation can:◦ Enable further understanding of disease processes◦ Lead to new disease therapies and preventative measures◦ Enhance health and likely expand human longevity
Hormesis is about how such loops respond to stresses to keep things in balance and further improve the situation.
Biological systems react to stress in a nonlinear fashion so as to restore balance.
Moreover, within a certain quantitative “window” of amount of stress, the organism and its subsystems mount strong defenses and is as a result better off than if there were no stress at all.
Introduction to Hormesis – starting with the needs of evolution
From a systems dynamics viewpoint, hormesis is an essential mechanism to keep the system going in dynamic equilibrium, e.g. dynamic homeostasis
the horizontal axis depicts level of applied stress, say as driven by ROS load in a cell.
The vertical axis represents relative risk, level of probable pathological organism response where normal level is 1.
The benefit tends to be in the 30% to 60% range
Introduction to Hormesis – the dose-response curve
Health
Risk, Damage
To the left of the first axis crossing in the diagram (point b), positive body reactions to the stress situation is progressively kicking in, but not sufficiently so as to overcome the direct negative effects of the stress.
Between stress levels b and D*** there is hormetic protection compared to what would be expected given a linear model of negative response to stress.
Starting at D** to D*** the stress load begins to overwhelm the hormetic defensive activities and the hormetic protection becomes less and less until at point D*** it vanishes.
Introduction to Hormesis – the dose-response curveBelow 1, there is a “health reserve,” such as an enhanced ability to do exercise or enhanced resistance to disease. Above 1 there is a less than normal “health reserve,” such as a lessened ability to resist disease or to do additional exercise.
Hormesis applies wherever there is stress, to multiple pathways, across all successful species, and is essential for survival. In that sense, it is multifactorial.
While the shape of the stress curve is the same, how to apply it in practice depends on the stress, the stress pathways activated, and the state of the organism and the biological subsystems affected.
Hormesis is important because inducing it is a way of enhancing health and possibly longevity.
Important practical, health and medical applications of hormesis are already in use
Many other health and medical applications are likely possible as well
The multifactorial nature of hormesis
Systematic whole organism training for environmental and societal accommodation
Whole organism biological conditioning
Organ/tissue, e.g. brain, muscles Cells of differing types
Hormesis exists at multiple levels
Body system, e.g. immune system Cell component, e.g. endoplasmic
reticulum, nucleus, chromatin. mitochondria, etc.
Key cell pathways – OXPHOS, electron chain transport system, apoptosis, stem cell differentiation, mitosis, etc.
There are many kinds of hormesis identifable by type of stress◦ Radiation ◦ Inflammation◦ Exercise ◦ Cold ◦ Heat◦ Dietary restriction Absence
of key nutrients Blood flow restriction Pathogens
◦ Interrupted sleep ◦ Stresses in cellular
processes (e.g. OXPHOS) ◦ Mental/emotional stress
Hormesis is sometimes discussed in terms of the biological system involved, e.g.◦ Mitohormesis◦ Neural hormesis◦ Vascular hormesis
Categories of hormesis
Often a given kind of stress may activate multiple hormesis l pathways
Hormesis can also be characterized by the biological pathways involved, E.g.◦ The adaptive immune system◦ ROS-mediated pathways◦ Pathways activated by other reactive
species◦ The unfolded protein response◦ The mitochondrial unfolded protein
IPC is an process whereby repeated short episodes of ischemia protect the myocardium against a subsequent ischemic insult.
Of interest as a technique for improving the outcomes of surgical techniques that entail ischemia. E.g. administered prior to heart surgery
An important application of hormesis– ischemic pre-conditioning (IPC)
7559 Pubmed publications since 1981
Imag source
“Ischemic preconditioning has been proved to be the most effective mode of endogenouse myocardial protection. However, studies of IP effects in cardiac surgery are rare and controversal.” (ref)
Neuroprotective against ischemia Protective of bone marrow multipotent stromal cells increase proliferation rates and enhance differentiation along the different mesenchymal
lineages. modulates the paracrine activity of MSCs And more,
Vascular hypoxic preconditioning
142 Pubmed publications since 1992
Another name for a kind of ischemic preconditioning
There is a window of "tolerance" to the given supra-hormetic stress dose that occurs 2-10 days after preconditioning.
Doing preconditioning followed by a large stress dose during the time window of tolerance is a way of proving that hormesis is a scientific principle for the given stressor.
Giving a blocking compound that extinguishes the effects of preconditioning provides evidence for the mechanism of action
Several studies suggest that ischemic preconditioning even works when administered remotely
Remote ischemic preconditioning is administered by restricting blood flow for 20 minutes or so using a cuff on an arm or leg.
The result is release of humoral factors that protect the heart from ischemic events.
Training for “Grit” and personal toughness◦ Endurance training for athletes◦ Military basic training; obstacle courses◦ Ranger and astranaught training◦ Outward Bound experiences◦ Tribal initiation ceremonies where a young
person is forced to survival alone in the outdoors
◦ “Tough love” training for young people
Systematic whole organism training for environmental and societal accommodation
Wisdom and capabilities acquired through hard interpersonal experiences such as divorces, deaths◦ Every obstacle in life overcome contributes to grit and
enhanced capability to survive and succeed: “that determination in life that cannot be denied”
Systematic whole organism training for environmental and societal accommodation
We do not normally think of these matters as hormesis, but they are. And it demonstrates the multi-level applicability of hormesis