Intermittent living; the use of ancient challenges as a vaccine against the deleterious effects of modern life – A hypothesis

Chronic non-communicable diseases (CNCD) are the leading cause of mortality in developed countries. They ensue from the sum of modern anthropogenic risk factors, including high calorie nutrition, malnutrition, sedentary lifestyle, social stress, environmental toxins, politics and economic factors. Many of these factors are beyond the span of control of individuals, suggesting that CNCD are inevitable. However, various studies, ours included, show that the use of intermittent challenges with hormetic effects improve subjective and objective wellbeing of individuals with CNCD, while having favourable effects on immunological, metabolic and behavioural indices. Intermittent cold, heat, fasting and hypoxia, together with phytochemicals in multiple food products, have widespread influence on many pathways related with overall health. Until recently, most of the employed challenges with hormetic effects belonged to the usual transient live experiences of our ancestors. Our hypothesis; we conclude that, whereas the total inflammatory load of multi-metabolic and psychological risk factors causes low grade inflammation and aging, the use of intermittent challenges, united in a 7–10 days lasting hormetic intervention, might serve as a vaccine against the deleterious effects of chronic low grade inflammation and it’s metabolic and (premature) aging consequences.

Abbreviations

Keywords

Evolution

Intermittent

Hormesis

Hypoxia

Hypercapnia

Vaccine

Chronic

Low grade inflammation

Fasting

Preconditioning