a) State Key Laboratory of Pollution Control and Resource Reuse, College of Environmental Science and Engineering, Tongji University, Shanghai 200092, China
b) Post-doctoral Research Station, College of Civil Engineering, Tongji University, Shanghai 200092, China
c) Department of Public Health, Environmental Health Sciences, Morrill I, N344, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, MA 01003, USA
d) Huadong Hospital Affiliated to Fudan University, No. 221 West Yan'an Road, Shanghai, China
e) Collaborative Innovation Center for Regional Environmental Quality, Beijing, China
f) Shanghai Key Lab of Chemical Assessment and Sustainability, Shanghai, China
g) Department of Biomedical and Biotechnological Sciences, Faculty of Medicine, University of Catania, 95125 Catania, Italy

This paper posits that herbal medicines used in TCM treatments may act through hormetic dose-response mechanisms. It is proposed that the stimulatory (i.e., low dose) and inhibitory (i.e., high dose) components of the hormetic dose response correspond to respective “regulating” and “curing” aspects of TCM herbal treatments. Specifically, the “regulating” functions promote adaptive or preventive responses, while “curing” treatments alleviate the clinical symptoms. Patterns of hormetic responses are described, and the applicability of these processes to herbal medicines of TCM are explicated.