Hormesis Research in China Is More Prevalent than Previously Thought

Evgenios Agathokleous; Caiyu Geng; Boya Zhou; Haoyu Sun; Jiahua Guo; Jing Zhang; Fuxing Zhu

doi:10.1177/15593258221112650

Hormesis Research in China Is More Prevalent than Previously Thought

Dose Response. 2022 Jul 21;20(3):15593258221112650. doi: 10.1177/15593258221112650. eCollection 2022 Jul-Sep.

Authors

Evgenios Agathokleous¹, Caiyu Geng¹, Boya Zhou^{1

2}, Haoyu Sun³, Jiahua Guo⁴, Jing Zhang⁵, Fuxing Zhu⁶

Affiliations

¹ School of Applied Meteorology, Nanjing University of Information Science & Technology (NUIST), Nanjing, PR China.
² Department of Life Sciences, Imperial College London, Silwood Park Campus, Ascot, UK.
³ Key Laboratory of Organic Compound Pollution Control Engineering (MOE), School of Environmental and Chemical Engineering, Shanghai University, Shanghai, PR China.
⁴ Shaanxi Key Laboratory of Earth Surface System and Environmental Carrying Capacity, College of Urban and Environmental Sciences, Northwest University, Xi'an, PR China.
⁵ College of Ecological Technology and Engineering, Shanghai Institute of Technology, Shanghai, PR China.
⁶ College of Plant Science and Technology, Huazhong Agricultural University, Wuhan, PR China.

Abstract

An analysis of China's domestic publications revealed that China's hormesis-related research was enormously underestimated. China's documented hormesis-related research spans at least four decades, covers a broad spectrum of research areas, and is more abundant than previously thought. These findings should be considered in historical assessments of the concept of hormesis. Moreover, similar to the international literature, different terms have been used to describe the same phenomenon (hormesis), which hampers communication, generalization of findings and accumulation of knowledge. Hence, we advocate that 'hormesis' should be cited as a keyword in all the relevant publications written in Chinese language.

Keywords: biphasic response; domestic publication; dose-response relationship; hormetic; science publishing; scientific literature.