Farooqui, Tahira, and Akhlaq A. Farooqui, eds. Diet and exercise in cognitive function and neurological diseases . Wiley Blackwell, 2015.
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Hormesis describes an adaptive process to resist stress. It is characterized by the biphasic response to 1000s of compounds, including natural signaling molecules. The underlying molecular pathways are activated by both exercise and calorie restriction and appear to slow the aging process by upregulating somatic maintenance, mitochondrial function, and oxidant resistance. The origins of this are ancient and are based on thermodynamics and entropy and thus, potentially, can be explained by quantum theory. The principle can be derived from the inherently dynamically unstable complex biological system based on chemical kinetics, which demonstrates the emergent property of self-organization under external influence. In effect, it embraces a natural principle of evolution by natural selection and a fundamental property of life, stress-induced information encoding, which we might call “intelligence.” This would explain why both diet and exercise enhance longevity and cognitive function, but a modern obesogenic environment has the opposite effect. Thus, what doesn’t kill you not only makes stronger and longer-lived but also smarter.