Author: Joachim P Sturmberg1, Martin Picard2, David C Aron3, Jeanette M Bennett4, Johannes Bircher5, Mark J deHaven6, Sanne M W Gijzel7, Henry H Heng8, James A Marcum9, Carmel M Martin10, Andrew Miles11, Chris L Peterson12, Nicolas Rohleder13, Christine Walker14, Marcel G M Olde Rikkert7, René J F Melis7
Affiliation: <sup>1</sup> Faculty of Health and Medicine, School of Medicine and Public Health, University of Newcastle, Callaghan, NSW, Australia.
<sup>2</sup> Division of Behavioral Medicine, Department of Psychiatry and Neurology, The H. Houston Merritt Center, Columbia Translational Neuroscience Initiative, Columbia Aging Center, Columbia University Medical Center, Columbia University, New York, NY, United States.
<sup>3</sup> School of Medicine, Weatherhead School of Management, Louis Stokes Cleveland VA Medical Center, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, OH, United States.
<sup>4</sup> Department of Psychological Science, University of North Carolina at Charlotte, Charlotte, NC, United States.
<sup>5</sup> Hepatology, Department for Biomedical Research, University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland.
<sup>6</sup> Health and Human Services, College of Health and Human Services, University of North Carolina at Charlotte, Charlotte, NC, United States.
<sup>7</sup> Department Geriatric Medicine, Radboud University Medical Center, Nijmegen, Netherlands.
<sup>8</sup> Department of Pathology, Center for Molecular Medicine and Genetics, School of Medicine, Wayne State University, Detroit, MI, United States.
<sup>9</sup> Philosophy and Medical Humanities, Baylor University, Waco, TX, United States.
<sup>10</sup> Department of Medicine, Nursing and Allied Health, Monash Health, Melbourne, VIC, Australia.
<sup>11</sup> European Society for Person Centered Healthcare, London, United Kingdom.
<sup>12</sup> School of Humanities and Social Sciences, La Trobe University, Bundoora, VIC, Australia.
<sup>13</sup> Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg, Erlangen, Germany.
<sup>14</sup> Chronic Illness Alliance, Moonee Ponds, VIC, Australia.
Conference/Journal: Front Med (Lausanne)
Date published: 2019 Mar 28
Other:
Volume ID: 6 , Pages: 59 , Special Notes: doi: 10.3389/fmed.2019.00059. , Word Count: 377
Health is an adaptive state unique to each person. This subjective state must be distinguished from the objective state of disease. The experience of health and illness (or poor health) can occur both in the absence and presence of objective disease. Given that the subjective experience of health, as well as the finding of objective disease in the community, follow a Pareto distribution, the following questions arise: What are the processes that allow the emergence of four observable states-(1) subjective health in the absence of objective disease, (2) subjective health in the presence of objective disease, (3) illness in the absence of objective disease, and (4) illness in the presence of objective disease? If we consider each individual as a unique biological system, these four health states must emerge from physiological network structures and personal behaviors. The underlying physiological mechanisms primarily arise from the dynamics of external environmental and internal patho/physiological stimuli, which activate regulatory systems including the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis and autonomic nervous system. Together with other systems, they enable feedback interactions between all of the person's system domains and impact on his system's entropy. These interactions affect individual behaviors, emotional, and cognitive responses, as well as molecular, cellular, and organ system level functions. This paper explores the hypothesis that health is an emergent state that arises from hierarchical network interactions between a person's external environment and internal physiology. As a result, the concept of health synthesizes available qualitative and quantitative evidence of interdependencies and constraints that indicate its top-down and bottom-up causative mechanisms. Thus, to provide effective care, we must use strategies that combine person-centeredness with the scientific approaches that address the molecular network physiology, which together underpin health and disease. Moreover, we propose that good health can also be promoted by strengthening resilience and self-efficacy at the personal and social level, and via cohesion at the population level. Understanding health as a state that is both individualized and that emerges from multi-scale interdependencies between microlevel physiological mechanisms of health and disease and macrolevel societal domains may provide the basis for a new public discourse for health service and health system redesign.
Keywords: complex adaptive nature of health; disease networks; emergence; health; health system redesign; physiology of health; psychoneuroimmunology; top-down and bottom-up causation.
PMID: 30984762 PMCID: PMC6447670 DOI: 10.3389/fmed.2019.00059