Tag: Health

Why Do We Care More About Disease than Health? | Martin Picard (2022)

Abstract

Modern Western biomedical research and clinical practice are primarily focused on disease. This disease-centric approach has yielded an impressive amount of knowledge around what goes wrong in illness. However, in comparison, researchers and physicians know little about health. What is health? How do we quantify it? And how do we improve it? We currently do not have good answers to these questions. Our lack of fundamental knowledge about health is partly driven by three main factors: (i) a lack of understanding of the dynamic processes that cause variations in health/disease states over time, (ii) an excessive focus on genes, and (iii) a pervasive psychological bias towards additive solutions. Here I briefly discuss potential reasons why scientists and funders have generally adopted a gene- and disease-centric framework, how medicine has ended up practicing “diseasecare” rather than healthcare, and present cursory evidence that points towards an alternative energetic view of health. Understanding the basis of human health with a similar degree of precision that has been deployed towards mapping disease processes could bring us to a point where we can actively support and promote human health across the lifespan, before disease shows up on a scan or in bloodwork.

Keywords Health · Medical care · Genomics · Personalized medicine · Energetics · Preventative medicine

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Teaching and health: a biological view | Professor Nelson M. Vaz (1999)

Abstract Living systems are structure determined systems. Teaching is never feasible, but learning is inevitable, a comment by an observer about some aspect of the constant changes occurring while life goes on. Teachers are all those who open up spaces for conviviality and allow congruent changes to take place. There are no instructive interactions in nature. Health and the biology of living systems are phenomena studied in different domains. What is healthy or unhealthy for humans, is defined by human culture. As biological phenomena, health and disease are relational configurations of the organism and its medium. From this perspective, individual health is a social phenomenon.

Key words Health Education; Epistemology; Education; Health

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Public Communication and Power: Talking Capitalism, Theory and Critique with John McMurtry

Abstract: This interview with globally distinguished Canadian philosopher and author, John McMurtry, presents dialogue discussing capitalism, asymmetrical power relations, life capital, social theory, common life interest, life value, global problems, market theology, media, values of the market and free market ideology today in relation to public education, academia, intellectual fads and the broader intellectual culture in relation to enabling public understanding of meaning-making and power, totalising market culture, climate, dispossession, health, influence, energy, labour, income, slavery, corporate welfare, neo-liberalism, the global ecosystem, and inequalities of class and power.

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There is NO UNITY Without a Life-Valuing COMMUNITY: Uncovering the LIFE-CAPITAL SOLUTION to a Healthier Nation

You may or may not know that I was his private doctor, and I had several opportunities to discuss many issues on life, that were relevant to his life and that of the life of our community.

What became clear very early on was that he was mourning the diminution of our liberating communal spirituality by an enslaving materialistic religiosity, that had captured our political and economic systems of good governance and had created histories and legacies of mental enslavement of our people, still yet unseen.

In this light, I am going to take a deep history and deep heritage approach, to show from whence we came and to whither bound, to show how we can make the Great Turn to transform all of the rules of our social engagements so that they can uplift us to the highest heights and not lead us downtrodden to the lowest-lows.

Sir Probyn had pride of place of Brimstone Hill in his heart, for it manifested the unbreakable spirit in the hearts and minds and backs and hands and feet of the slaves who built it, as manifested in their superb craftsmanship.

For him this was proof of principle that no matter how diabolic the times were, THAT spirit could never have been extinguished and can NOW be tapped into as a source of transformation that guides our thoughts, feelings and actions, individually and collectively, in comprehensively inclusive and imaginatively creative life-enabling ways.

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Human and Planetary Health: Ecosystem Restoration at the Dawn of the Century of Regeneration | Daniel Christian Wahl

There are lots of things coming together, economic crises, ecological crises, social crises. My friend and mentor Fritjof Capra once said if you follow the rivers of these crises upstream, you meet a crises of consciousness, a crises of perception. A crises of how we see our selves and our role in this living planet. Read More

BUILDING HEALTH THROUGHOUT THE LIFE COURSE | PAHO

Health is a component of and a key resource for human development. It results from a cumulative process of continuous interaction between exposures and experiences, which have an impact at both the individual and population levels, not only episodically but over time, and with trans-generational effects (1). The increase in human life expectancy by approximately 30 years over the last century provides a compelling reason to expand health-related goals beyond simple survival (2, 3).

In the Region of the Americas, the effort to increase life expectancy has been successful; however, the increase in healthy life expectancy has not kept pace. On average, 8 of every 10 people who are born in the Region will live beyond age 60, and more than 4 in 10 will live past 80 (4). One-quarter of those who live past 80 will live with poor health (4). According to estimates, people in the Region live on average 9 years with functional limitations or disability (5). An increased lifespan, but with longer periods of illness and dependence on care provided by others, is a great burden for States, societies, and families, and a significant challenge for public health.

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Health, Interconnectedness and Salutogenesis | Daniel Christian Wahl

Reproduced from: https://medium.com/age-of-awareness/health-interconnectedness-and-salutogenesis-ca69c4f5366c Health, Interconnectedness and Salutogenesis from ‘Design for Human and Planetary Health’ D.C. Wahl 2006 So what genuine possibilities stand before us when we are considering the question of health? Without doubt it is part of our nature as living beings that our conscious self-awareness remains largely in the background so that our enjoyment of… Read More

Reducing Obesity: Future Choices | Foresight Project (2007)

Foresight report looking at how we can respond to rising levels of obesity in the UK. “Foresight projects give evidence to policy-makers to help them make policies that are more resilient to the future.” Images below were captured from: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/287937/07-1184x-tackling-obesities-future-choices-report.pdf Please click on the image to enlarge to study in detail.

“Design for human and planetary health: a transdisciplinary approach to sustainability” by Daniel Christian Wahl

Reproduced from: https://hackernoon.com/design-for-human-and-planetary-health-a-transdisciplinary-approach-to-sustainability-e83ed741c63d Design for human and planetary health: a transdisciplinary approach to sustainability WIT Transactions on Ecology and the Environment, Vol 99, © 2006 WIT Press, ISSN 1743–3541 (on-line) D. C. Wahl, Centre for the Study of Natural Design, University of Dundee, Scotland, UK Abstract This paper explores various integrative frameworks that are contributing to… Read More