{"id":635,"date":"2017-03-11T11:23:29","date_gmt":"2017-03-11T11:23:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/healthicine.org\/wordpress\/?p=635"},"modified":"2018-10-10T03:55:10","modified_gmt":"2018-10-10T03:55:10","slug":"a-scientific-theory-of-illness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/healthicine.org\/wordpress\/a-scientific-theory-of-illness\/","title":{"rendered":"A Scientific Theory of Illness and Disease"},"content":{"rendered":"

If a super-intelligent alien was to visit our planet and search for a scientific theory of illness, she might conclude the our prevailing theory consists of “sell the drugs” and “damn the consequences”. She might also know that the scientific theory of illness consists of:<\/p>\n

Illness Theory #1: Every illness has a cause.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

It is useful to view each life entity as a whole, and to view health as whole. From this perspective, health is whole and illness is a hole in health, an absence of health.<\/p>\n

ELEMENTARY\u00a0ILLNESS is an illness with a single cause and its negative consequences.\u00a0 <\/strong><\/p>\n

There are three basic types of illness elements: causal illness, injury, and attribute illness. An causal illness consists of the signs and symptoms resulting from a process cause. An injury illness consists of the injuries resulting from a cause, often in the past. An attribute illness is caused by the presence or absence of a thing or attribute necessary for or blocking healthy flows of life.<\/p>\n

COMPLEX ILLNESS is an illness with more than one element arising from a single cause or causal chain.<\/strong>\u00a0 For example one cause might result in signs and symptoms and also an injury.<\/p>\n

COMPOUND ILLNESS is an illness consisting of two or more elementary illnesses, of an illness with two or more causes.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Does our medical system have a theory of illness?<\/em> \u00a0You might be surprised to learn that there is no prevailing scientific theory of illness. There are many so-called theories of illness, but none that achieve the simplicity of a scientific theory. \u00a0Illness seems to be everywhere in practice, but nowhere in theory.<\/p>\n

Why is there no scientific theory of illness?\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

eNotes<\/a> says: “Anthropologists often divide theories of illness into two broad categories: personalistic and naturalistic.\u00a0\u00a0In a personalistic system, illness is believed to be caused by the intervention of a sensate agent who may be a supernatural being (a deity or dead ancestor) or a human being with special powers (a witch or a sorcerer)…\u00a0Naturalistic theories of disease causation tend to view health as a state of harmony between a human being and his or her environment; when this balance is upset, illness will result.<\/em>”<\/p>\n

Neither of these classes of theories of illness contains the simplicity and clarity required for a useful scientific theory of illness. \u00a0And neither is recognized by the medical establishment as a clear, useful theory of illness.<\/p>\n

“Personalistic” theories are basically superstitions that might be used to explain anything – but not in any scientific manner.<\/p>\n

“Naturalistic” theories are closer to being useful, but as defined above are quite limited. They do not consider that illness can come from failure of internal harmonies, not just harmonies with externals. They also tend to measure illness as binary – either balance is maintained, or balance is upset. \u00a0But the balances of healthiness, and of illness, are much more complex. \u00a0Life, healthy life, uses balancing and unbalancing as a source of leverage and power.<\/p>\n

The book: Theories of Illness: A World Survey, by George Peter Murdock<\/a>, claims to be “An important contribution to medical anthropology, this work defines the principal causes if illness that are reported throughout the world, distinguishing those involving natural causation from the more widely prevalent hypotheses advancing supernatural explanations<\/em>“.<\/p>\n

But this book is not about illness. \u00a0It not a scientific exploration of ‘theories of illness’, it is, instead a ‘history (anthropology) of the many theories of illness throughout different societies throughout history’. We can quickly see from a scan of the chapter titles that this book does not aim to represent any single theory of illness, rather it presents as many as the authors can find. It is, as stated in the forward: “a landmark of comparative studies”. But there is no attempt at scientific analysis.<\/p>\n

If we are to have a scientific theory of illness, we need a theory that is independent of the opinions of specific patients, with specific illnesses, and independent of specific doctors with specific cures. \u00a0The theory of illness also needs to be independent of any theories of treatments.<\/p>\n

Who decides if you have an illness? \u00a0Can you decide? \u00a0Can your spouse, your friends, or your priest decide? Or does it require a doctor to identify the illness before it exists as an illness? Legally, only a doctor can diagnose a disease – but an illness must be present before a disease can be diagnosed. What if two doctors, or more, happen to disagree? \u00a0Is there a court that decides if you have an illness or not? \u00a0Clearly, deciding who has an illness is not a trivial question.<\/p>\n

In this discussion of illness and the theory of illness and disease, I will use the assumption that you have a disease when a doctor issues a diagnosis of a medical condition. That is the definition that is in primary use in today’s medical system. It is clear that an illness must be present before a disease can be diagnosed.<\/p>\n

If you have an illness, the first questions you might\u00a0consider are: “am I going to live” followed by “how bad is it?” \u00a0Neither of these questions speak to a general theory of illness – both are personal and answers are different for every individual illness.<\/p>\n

The next question should be\u00a0“what is the best cure\u00a0for this illness?” This question, is a total mystery for most illnesses today, because of the weakness of our current\u00a0theory of illness. Cure is simply not defined for most illnesses today. Many current medical dictionaries and references make no attempt to defined cure, cures, cured, or even incurable.<\/a> “Best cure” almost seems like a silly question. \u00a0It is not.<\/p>\n

Finally, you might ask “what caused this illness?” \u00a0So that you, and your family and your communities, might avoid this illness in the future.<\/p>\n

We can find the beginnings of a theory of illness in the last question.<\/p>\n

“what caused this illness<\/strong>” – implies an underlying awareness that illness has a cause. This gives us the first theory of illness.<\/p>\n

Illness Theory #1: Every illness has a cause.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

This simple theory encompasses virtually all of current theories of illness, from the ‘germ theory’, to all of the ‘personalistic’ and ‘naturalistic’ theories. It might be argued that this theory is too simplistic.<\/em> However, this argument quickly becomes moot when we use this fundamental statement\u00a0to move forward our understanding of illness. “Every illness has a cause” is the foundation of any theory of illness. The theory is simple because we need a simple, solid foundation to build upon.<\/p>\n

Note: An elementary illness, or an illness element has a single cause.\u00a0 However, be aware that whenever we find a ’cause’ of an illness we can find a chain of causes by asking “what is the cause of this cause?<\/em>” and “what are the immediate consequences of this cause?<\/em>” An illness element has a single chain of causes. No ‘things’ cause illness by themselves. Every cause is an action, or a process, or a thing or attribute that blocks or disables a healthy process.<\/p>\n

When we look at causes of illness – in general as opposed to specific illnesses, one thing quickly becomes clear, and has been stated by many people studying illness. Illness can be caused by deficiencies. \u00a0Illness can also be caused by excesses. Many theories of illness and of healthiness strive to maintain ‘balance’. \u00a0Balance lies between deficiency and excess. There might be deficiencies or excesses of nutrients, of exercise, of sensations, of many many factors. \u00a0They might be, if you believe in personalistic theories, caused by an excess of bad wishes from someone who wants you to be sick.<\/p>\n

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This scale shows that healthiness exists in balance – illness emerges from deficiencies or excesses in some attribute of healthiness. Simple illnesses have simple causes, complex illnesses have combined or complex causes. Actually, it’s a bit more complicated. All of the balances of health are active. We use balance, in many ways, to move forward in life.\u00a0We walk by unbalancing and recovering. \u00a0We run by taking more risk. A\u00a0balance that one person considers to be healthy might easily be judged as, or be an unhealthy balance for someone else.<\/span><\/div>\n
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An ELEMENTARY\u00a0IL<\/strong>LNESS is an illness that has a single cause, a single imbalance or lack of ability to use balancing effectively.\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n

A COMPOUND\u00a0ILLNESS\u00a0is an illness with more than one cause. Every compound illness consists of two or more elementary illnesses.\u00a0<\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n

These are close to the Naturalistic theory of illness. \u00a0But it quickly becomes clear that we need to add a simple refinement.<\/p>\n

Healthiness to Unhealthiness to Illness to Disease<\/h2>\n

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Healthiness exists in balance, and when we are able to use balancing effectively.\u00a0 As we lose balance, or lose ability to use balancing, we move towards unhealthiness.\u00a0 As unhealthiness becomes more severe, we arrive at illness.\u00a0 The boundaries between healthiness, unhealthiness and illness are fuzzy and flexible.<\/p>\n

Disease, however, is more clearly defined. A disease is a classification system for illnesses.\u00a0 A case of a disease is that which has been diagnosed.\u00a0Disease only exists when it is diagnosed and only exists from the point of diagnosis. However, there is a technical problem as this image relates to cure.\u00a0 There is no definition of cured, and once a disease is diagnosed, there is no technique to identify a cure.<\/p>\n

Each possible cause of illness, each imbalance, has a threshold. Below the threshold, and you\u00a0might have an illness, or not; above the threshold you might have a\u00a0disease.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Medical researchers work to define the line, to develop a series of diagnostic tests indicating that you ‘have a disease’, or not. However, in today’s medical practice, this line is often defined by signs and symptoms – without any respect for cause. <\/span><\/p>\n

We need to measure both cause and consequences to determine if an illness exists. Every illness is an intersection of cause and consequences – it is possible to have either cause or consequences without the illness. \u00a0The illness only exists when they exist together, in a causal link.<\/p>\n

What if you have an inability to balance that is not yet an illness and thus not yet a disease? At present, we have no name for this status, although it is, by definition, likely present more often than disease. We might call this ‘unhealthiness’. If it is serious enough to cause a problem for the patient (or the doctor) it can be called an illness, but it cannot be called a disease until has been diagnosed.\u00a0 Of course a disease can be diagnosed retroactively.<\/p>\n

UNHEALTHINESS is an imbalance (a deficiency or an excess) or inability to use healthy balancing effectively,\u00a0that is not severe enough to be classified as an illness. <\/strong>Note: we often consider unhealthiness to be an unwillingness to use balance effectively, for example consuming too much alcohol, or smoking too many cigarettes, or not maintaining significant care about cleanliness. The line between ‘inability to do’ and ‘inability to choose’ is interesting.<\/p>\n

Healthiness is the opposite of unhealthiness. When healthiness increases, unhealthiness decreases. \u00a0When unhealthiness increases, healthiness decreases.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Health improves when the balances improve. \u00a0When we are more able to use\u00a0balancing and imbalances to move forward in life. When imbalances can be used effectively, we are healthier.<\/p>\n

Because health is dependent on active balancing, perfectly optimized health is not possible. \u00a0Many of the balances of health are in constant flux due to life. Many of the balances that move us toward optimal health are in competition. We might wish for an athlete with optimal strength, optimal flexibility, optimal speed, optimal endurance – but we soon learn that optimal strength causes a decrease in flexibility, and acquiring optimal speed creates a deficiency in endurance. Perfectly optimal health would consist of optimizing many thousands of healthy balances – many of which are in competition.<\/p>\n

CURE<\/h2>\n

As we develop a scientific theory of illness and disease, we can use it to develop a scientific theory of cure.\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n

The best health requires Personal Health Freedom to choose which balances are important to each self. \u00a0Everyone has a right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of healthiness.<\/a><\/p>\n

As we\u00a0work with\u00a0this theory of illness, we will learn more effective techniques for the early detection, prevention, diagnosis, treatment of and recovery from illness.<\/p>\n

\"amazonBookImge\"<\/a>Healthicine: The Arts and Sciences of Health and Healthiness<\/a> is about the study of health.\u00a0 Healthicine is a new field of study.\u00a0 There are no experts \u2013 only those who might claim to be experts because of their successes in studying illness.<\/p>\n

to your healthiness, tracy<\/p>\n

This is an updated version of a post originally published in February 2013, updated in March 2017, further updated on April 21, 2017 – as I work on revisions to the initial concepts of healthicine.
\nUpdated Oct. 20, 2017 to add the concept of a complex illness.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"reddit\"<\/a>\"pinterest\"<\/a>\"linkedin\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If a super-intelligent alien was to visit our planet and search for a scientific theory of illness, she might conclude the our prevailing theory consists of “sell the drugs” and “damn the consequences”. She might also know that the scientific … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-635","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/healthicine.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/635","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/healthicine.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/healthicine.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/healthicine.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/healthicine.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=635"}],"version-history":[{"count":38,"href":"http:\/\/healthicine.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/635\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5703,"href":"http:\/\/healthicine.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/635\/revisions\/5703"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/healthicine.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=635"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/healthicine.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=635"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/healthicine.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=635"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}