scholarly journals Ορίζοντας την υγεία και την ασθένεια: Η αυτογνωσία ως κριτήριο υγείας

Bioethica ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 4
Author(s):  
Γρηγόρης Αθανασιάδης (Grigoris Athanasiadis)
Keyword(s):  
Philosophy Of Medicine ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Adaptation Theory ◽  
Medical Sciences ◽  
Christopher Boorse ◽  
Medical Terms ◽  
Health And Disease ◽  
Self Knowledge ◽  
Biostatistical Theory ◽  
Holistic Theory

A central issue in the philosophy of medicine is to solve the problem of determining the nature of the concepts of health and disease. Some theorists claim that health and disease are purely value-free and descriptive concepts that are discoverable and grounded in the biological and medical sciences. Others claim that health and disease are essentially value-laden concepts, i.e. healthy states are those states we (individuals, groups, societies) desire or value and diseased states are those we want to avoid or disvalue.Considering the longtime disagreement among physicians, theorists of health and philosophers about the essential characteristics of health and disease, the aim in the first part of this paper is to briefly present four different philosophical approaches of health and disease in an attempt to introduce the readers to the debate. This article begins with the Biostatistical theory of Christopher Boorse. It turns to the Malady theory of Danner Clouser, Charles Culver and Bernard Gert, the holistic theory of Lennart Nordenfelt and finally the adaptation theory of József Kovács.In the second part of the paper, some objections will be stated to each theory. In the third and last part, a completely different account of health will be given, which holds that self-knowledge is a criterion of human health. Health, unlike disease, is not a state or a condition of the organism but an endless process. Its essence can be better captured in philosophical rather than medical terms and it should be applied only to human beings.

What is Philosophy of Medicine?

PARADIGMI ◽  
2011 ◽  
pp. 11-28
Author(s):  
Elselijn Kingma
Keyword(s):  
Philosophy Of Medicine ◽  
Medical Knowledge ◽  
Concepts Of Health ◽  
Health And Disease ◽  
The Relationship

Philosophy of Medicine is considered a new and emerging discipline. This paper presents an overview of philosophy of medicine, discusses its relation to bioethics and to other areas of philosophy, and introduces three potential topics for research in the philosophy of medicine: concepts of health and disease, the relationship between medicine and psychiatry, and the problems of medical knowledge and evidence.

scholarly journals Az orvosi antropológia című tantárgy helye és szerepe az orvosképzésben. Az úgynevezett szegedi modell

2019 ◽  
Vol 160 (39) ◽  
pp. 1527-1532
Author(s):  
Bettina Pikó ◽  
Erzsébet Kapocsi ◽  
Gergely Tari ◽  
Hedvig Kiss ◽  
Katalin Barabás
Keyword(s):  
Medical Education ◽  
Medical Students ◽  
Medical Anthropology ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Medical Sciences ◽  
Major Goal ◽  
Cultural Backgrounds ◽  
Biological Reality ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Globalized World

Abstract: It is a necessary part of modern medical education that medical students should learn about the binary nature of human beings – biological and cultural – since both have an impact on our behavior. The subject of medical anthropology helps with understanding the mechanisms and lay concepts behind patients’ decisions which is particularly important in our globalized world. The major goal of this course is to help medical students with acquiring cultural competence through theoretical bases and empirical examples that may help them later in their work when they meet patients with different cultural backgrounds. In the present study, we introduce the course of Medical Anthropology as it happens at the Faculty of Medicine, University of Szeged: the so-called Szeged model – its aims, syllabus, strengths, opportunities and possible difficulties. During the development of the subject, we greatly focused on its links to other subjects of behavioral and medical sciences and on its practice-oriented nature. Thus, the course partly contains of lectures and seminars which display cultural variability in relation to biological reality through practical examples. As a result, the topics of medical anthropology prepare the students to use the knowledge as well as skills and attitudes in clinical practice. Orv Hetil. 2019; 160(39): 1527–1532.

scholarly journals A case of necrotizing fasciitis due to Klebsiella following local application of steroids

2016 ◽  
Vol 7 (6) ◽  
pp. 97-99 ◽  
Author(s):  
Suhaib Rehaman Abdul ◽  
Robin George
Keyword(s):  
Necrotizing Fasciitis ◽  
Local Application ◽  
Causative Organism ◽  
Site Infection ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Medical Sciences ◽  
Abdominal Infection ◽  
Clinical Syndromes ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Intravascular Devices

Klebsiella organisms are known to cause a wide range of clinical syndromes in human beings which include pneumonia, urinary tract infection, abdominal infection, surgical site infection, soft tissue infection and infection of intravascular devices. The incidence is higher among immunocompromised individuals and those with chronic debilitating diseases like diabetes, alcoholism etc. This case report is regarding an elderly diabetic male who developed necrotizing fasciitis of leg following local application of steroids. The causative organism was Klebsiella, which is an unusual pathogen.Asian Journal of Medical Sciences Vol.7(5) 2016 97-99

scholarly journals Social determinants of health and disease: the role of small-scale projects illustrated by the Koster health project in Sweden and Ametra in Peru

1992 ◽  
Vol 8 (3) ◽  
pp. 229-239
Author(s):  
Maj-Lis Follér
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Changes ◽  
Determinants Of Health ◽  
Ecological Approach ◽  
Small Scale ◽  
Subjective Feeling ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Pluralistic Society ◽  
Health And Disease ◽  
Health Project

Two different health projects are evaluated in this paper. The Koster Health project taking place at the Koster Islands in Sweden and the Ametra project going on among the Shipibo-Conibo in Peru. Both projects focus more on the determinants of health than on sickness and more on the individual's subjective feeling of illness than on the biomedically "objectively" recognizable disease. "Mobilization" and "responsibility"for the individual's own health are central concepts in both projects. In the theoretical part of the paper a human ecological perspective is suggested to analyse the interaction between human health and environmental changes. The author emphasizes the importance of interdisciplinary research when evaluating how the external determinants from the natural and social environment affect human beings and health. The human ecological approach is seen as a complement to the biomedical research. Health and disease are two poles in a continuum. In a pluralistic society we should struggle towards the pole of health.

Introduction

Good Lives ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 1-2
Author(s):  
Samuel Clark
Keyword(s):  
Good Life ◽  
The Good Life ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Self Knowledge ◽  
Father And Son

Reasoning with autobiography is a way to self-knowledge. We can learn about ourselves, as human beings and as individuals, by reading, thinking through, and arguing about this distinctive kind of text. Reasoning with Edmund Gosse’s Father and Son is a way of learning about the nature of the good life and the roles that pleasure and self-expression can play in it. Reasoning with Siegfried Sassoon’s ...

scholarly journals Amyloidogenic Peptides in Human Neuro-Degenerative Diseases and in Microorganisms: A Sorrow Shared Is a Sorrow Halved?

Molecules ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 25 (4) ◽  
pp. 925 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kristina Endres
Keyword(s):  
Neurodegenerative Diseases ◽  
Self Assembly ◽  
Amyloid Β ◽  
Degenerative Diseases ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Precursor Proteins ◽  
Long Time ◽  
Health And Disease ◽  
Amyloidogenic Peptides ◽  
Toxic Peptides

The term “amyloid” refers to proteinaceous deposits of peptides that might be generated from larger precursor proteins e.g., by proteolysis. Common to these peptides is a stable cross-β dominated secondary structure which allows self-assembly, leading to insoluble oligomers and lastly to fibrils. These highly ordered protein aggregates have been, for a long time, mainly associated with human neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s disease (Amyloid-β peptides). However, they also exert physiological functions such as in release of deposited hormones in human beings. In the light of the rediscovery of our microbial commensals as important companions in health and disease, the fact that microbes also possess amyloidogenic peptides is intriguing. Transmission of amyloids by iatrogenic means or by consumption of contaminated meat from diseased animals is a well-known fact. What if also our microbial commensals might drive human amyloidosis or suffer from our aggregated amyloids? Moreover, as the microbial amyloids are evolutionarily older, we might learn from these organisms how to cope with the sword of Damocles forged of endogenous, potentially toxic peptides. This review summarizes knowledge about the interplay between human amyloids involved in neurodegenerative diseases and microbial amyloids.

Tibetan Medicine and Biomedicine: Epistemological Conflicts, Practical Solutions

2006 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 72-85 ◽  
Author(s):  
Geoffrey B. Samuel
Keyword(s):  
Tibetan Medicine ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Medical Systems ◽  
Complex Process ◽  
Medicinal Substances ◽  
Health And Disease ◽  
Traditional Tibetan Medicine ◽  
The One ◽  
Medical Traditions ◽  
Soul Loss

The western adaptation of non-western medical systems and traditions is a complex process that takes place at a variety of different levels. In many practical medical contexts, epistemological issues receive little attention. Both patients and practitioners may switch frameworks relatively freely, without much concern about underlying theoretical assumptions. Epistemological issues may be more central elsewhere, for example in regard to the licensing and approval of practitioners and medicinal substances, or in terms of the rethinking of western models of knowledge to include new insights from these non-western sources. I suggest in this paper that the major learned medical traditions of Asia, such as āyurveda and traditional Chinese medicine and traditional Tibetan medicine, for all their differences from biomedicine and among each other, are in some respects relatively compatible with western biomedical understandings. They can be read in physiological terms, as referring to a vocabulary of bodily processes that underlie health and disease. Such approaches, however, marginalise or exclude elements that disrupt this compatibility (e.g. references to divinatory procedures, spirit attack or flows of subtle 'energies'). Other non-western healing practices, such as those in which spirit attack, 'soul loss' or 'shamanic' procedures are more central, are less easily assimilated to biomedical models, and may simply be dismissed as incompatible with modern scientific understandings. Rather than assenting to physiological reduction in the one case, and dismissal as pre-scientific in the other, we should look for a wider context of understanding within which both kinds of approach can be seen as part of a coherent view of human beings and human existence.

scholarly journals Breast Cancer and Its Relationship with the Microbiota

2018 ◽  
Vol 15 (8) ◽  
pp. 1747 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mariana Fernández ◽  
Iris Reina-Pérez ◽  
Juan Astorga ◽  
Andrea Rodríguez-Carrillo ◽  
Julio Plaza-Díaz ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Breast Cancer ◽  
Dynamic Balance ◽  
Human Microbiome ◽  
Serum Levels ◽  
Endogenous Hormones ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Microbial Composition ◽  
Metabolizing Enzymes ◽  
Health And Disease ◽  
Bacterial Genes

The microorganisms that live symbiotically in human beings are increasingly recognized as important players in health and disease. The largest collection of these microorganisms is found in the gastrointestinal tract. Microbial composition reflects both genetic and lifestyle variables of the host. This microbiota is in a dynamic balance with the host, exerting local and distant effects. Microbial perturbation (dysbiosis) could contribute to the risk of developing health problems. Various bacterial genes capable of producing estrogen-metabolizing enzymes have been identified. Accordingly, gut microbiota is capable of modulating estrogen serum levels. Conversely, estrogen-like compounds may promote the proliferation of certain species of bacteria. Therefore, a crosstalk between microbiota and both endogenous hormones and estrogen-like compounds might synergize to provide protection from disease but also to increase the risk of developing hormone-related diseases. Recent research suggests that the microbiota of women with breast cancer differs from that of healthy women, indicating that certain bacteria may be associated with cancer development and with different responses to therapy. In this review, we discuss recent knowledge about the microbiome and breast cancer, identifying specific characteristics of the human microbiome that may serve to develop novel approaches for risk assessment, prevention and treatment for this disease.

Plato's Critique of Hedonism in the Philebus

2008 ◽  
Vol 102 (1) ◽  
pp. 141-151 ◽  
Author(s):  
ROBERT C. BARTLETT
Keyword(s):  
Political Philosophy ◽  
The Self ◽  
Self Awareness ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Precise Nature ◽  
Crucial Question ◽  
Human Good ◽  
Self Knowledge

No one can claim to have thought seriously about the question “How ought I to live?”, the guiding question of political philosophy, without having confronted the powerful answer to it supplied by hedonism. In thinking about hedonism today, we may begin from that thinker who was both very important to and early in its history: Plato. Of the dialogs that have come down to us as Plato's, only the Philebus takes as its direct aim the examination of pleasure's claim to be the human good. The Philebus culminates in the suggestions that the need for self-awareness or self-knowledge may finally be more fundamental to all human beings (and hence to hedonists) than is even the desire for pleasure, and that the experience of at least some pleasures constitutes a great obstacle to precisely the self-knowledge we seek. The Philebus is important today not only because it contains a searching analysis of hedonism but also because it compels us to raise the crucial question of the precise nature of “the good” with which we are justly most concerned—our own or that of others—a question whose centrality to self-knowledge we are in danger of forgetting.

Self-Knowledge and a Refutation of the Immateriality of Human Nature

2020 ◽  
Vol 60 (2) ◽  
pp. 189-199
Author(s):  
Pirooz Fatoorchi ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Human Nature ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Self Knowledge ◽  
Epistemic Asymmetry

The paper deals with an argument reported by Razi (d. 1210) that was used to attempt to refute the immateriality of human nature. This argument is based on an epistemic asymmetry between our self-knowledge and our knowledge of immaterial things. After some preliminary remarks, the paper analyzes the structure of the argument in four steps. From a methodological point of view, the argument is similar to a family of epistemological arguments (notably, the Cartesian argument from doubt) and is vulnerable to the same objection that can be raised against that form of reasoning. The last section points out that the argument can be used indirectly to highlight the weakness in some arguments for the claim that there is something immaterial in human beings.

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