Can Tiny Amounts Of Poison Actually Be Good For You?

Biology professor Paul Z. Myers of the University of Minnesota describes an animal study in which fish embryos experience non-linear toxicity from alcohol, a toxin that causes severe deformities in zebrafish embryos at high doses and prolonged exposure. According to Myers, “I’ve done concentration series, where we give sets of embryos exposures at increasing concentrations, and we get a nice linear curve out of it: more alcohol leads to increasing frequency and severity of midline and branchial arch defects. With one exception: at low concentrations of about 0.5% alcohol, the treated embryos actually have reduced mortality rates relative to the controls, and no developmental anomalies.” Similarly, in experiments by Ronald Chesser, a radiation biologist at Texas Tech University, and his colleagues, mice exposed to low doses of radiation around Chernobyl for 10 to 45 days became resistant to damage from a higher, acute radiation dose delivered later in the lab.

Hormesis appears to result from a kind of overcompensation that explains the enhanced protective mechanisms elicited by small amounts of a toxin. That is, protective mechanisms are activated to a greater degree than would be necessary merely to neutralize the insult, resulting in a beneficial effect.

Full Henry Miller column in Forbes.

Print