A little Stress (Hormesis) can fortify you to face big Stress
Your hardest times often lead to the greatest moments of your life. Keep going. Tough situations build strong people in the end.”
Life is a saga of full uncertainty where nature whispers with nurture to scale the intended outcome of life. The fascinating journey of life is not less fascinating than exploring the expeditions of mountain peaks or the glaciers of the polar region. Very often small hurdles appear to stop the journey but the courage and determination can be enough to root out the obstacles and to face the next encounter. Small depressions can make you ready for massive cyclones or tsunamis. Mild temperature changes can fortify you to address big temperature changes where you belong. Being afraid can strengthen you to overcome an unavoidable threat in life. Small patch holes in the road can mentally stabilize you to pass uneven roads. Life is not a bed of roses’ as the proverb goes. You have rightly pointed out. I am talking about hormesis when there is an interruption of homeostasis. Homeostasis does not bring the message of smoothness; rather it can bring the saga of more issues to be chased if the journey is to be continued. The journey is to be continued as we believe in “Charoiboite, Charoiboite — -“ ( to be gone ahead). Small changes can become the prelude to addressing the big changes like depressions are enough to prepare to address tsunamis. Normally, human beings are the outcome of a set of thousand biochemical interactions and the steady state is maintained by the process called homeostasis. Let me explore it. Homeostasis (as coined by Walter Cannon, 1926) is derived from the Greek word ‘Homio’ means ‘similar to’ and ‘stasis’ means ‘standing still’. So it is defined as the steady state of the body. The body’s main function is to operate but not to deviate from a narrow range of internal balance to achieve dynamic equilibrium despite the changes in the external environment. On the cellular level, it is observable in the biochemical reactions by the regulation of pH, temperature, oxygen, ion concentration and blood glucose concentration by the active participation of the set of enzymes to function optimally and the formation as well as disposal of the unwanted waste products from the cell in the urge of maintaining the dynamic equilibrium of the body parts. However, the human body can detect the changes caused by the disruptions and employ effectors to mediate the change. The set point is invaluable in the development of the homeostatic control system and is the value that the system designs the output to be. Although homeostasis is central to understanding internal regulation, allostasis, or maintaining stability through change, is worthy of mention, as it is also important to address the ever-changing environmental inputs upon the systems. So, the main purpose of homeostasis is to maintain the established internal environment without being overcome by external stimuli that exist to disrupt the internal balance. We all earnestly deserve peace of mind but still, peace less night becomes a nightmare to us for different reasons which have no control over us. But does the homeostasis disruption can be answered by the body? The answer lies in the understanding of other adaptive mechanisms called ‘Hormesis’ to compensate for any disruption in homeostasis caused by exposure to mild stresses. For example, short periods of mild ischemia popularly known as ischemic preconditioning (IPC) stimulate the compensating mechanisms to protect the brain from severe blood and oxygen deficiency. Mild caloric restriction can protect us from the dangerous disruption of cells. The word ‘ hormesis’ defines the adaptive responses of living organisms to different inevitable stress factors irrespective of nature either from the environment or the system to which someone belongs to. Specifically, the environment cannot be avoided and the environmental factors that can induce stress in living beings with simulator and inhibitory effects. Some environmental factors can induce stress in living beings with both simulator and inhibitory effects. For example, mild stress across the road can bring you a little bit of hurdlers to cross but in the long run, it can enable you to create a mindset that is ahead in the long journey of life. The same things can be applied to plant life. A low dose of some stress can benefit plant growth or metabolite production that develops due to some unavoidable external issues. For example, the bitter taste of cucumber is the production of cucurbitacins and it is due to some environmental stress, cucurbitacins enables the plant to create disease resistance against the different pathogenic interventions responsible for diseases. However, a high dose of stress may become lethal to the organisms and may cause irreversible problems with negative effects. Similarly, excess soil moisture can cause hypoxia reflected due to stunted growth and the prevalent drought for a long time can cause osmotic stress with an anxiety of ionic imbalance. We can validate the general concept of physiological hormesis as being the phenomenon of achieving health-beneficial effects by exposure to mild stress. Mild stress–induced activation of one or more intercellular pathways of the stress response are very important to be addressed. The recent findings have also confirmed the role of hormesis in living organisms. Low doses of a vast range of chemical and physical substances induce beneficial effects while the high dose may cause opposite effects. Low doses may induce autophagy, a critical adaptive response that can protect all cell lines as well as being transgenerational via epigenetic mechanisms. So, the hormesis has a lot of beauty if it is to be addressed properly for the sake of sustainable health and productive issues. This was the beauty of the story of the cell and how it addresses the different types of changes supposed to happen corresponding to the change of the surroundings. “Joy and woe are woven fine” and we must acknowledge the song of life. The majestic beauty of the cellular song teaches us the destiny of life. We deserve homeostasis in our everyday life but this is next to impossible. But if we welcome hormesis, life will become the pleasure of happiness. We believe, “What we all need to do is find the wellspring that keeps us going, that gives us the strength and patience to keep up this struggle for a long time”. — Winona LaDuke
