Emphasising prevention, developing therapies, complementing approaches

Singh, Ajai R; Singh, Shakuntala A

doi:10.4103/0973-1229.27880

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“…Also worth noting is the fact that the number of people falling sick has not reduced. While individual disease treatment is progressing, so also is human pathology; sicknesses are not reducing in number; they are only changing in type ( Singh and Singh, 2005-2006 ):…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Diseases of Poverty and Lifestyle, Well-Being and Human Development

Singh¹,

Singh²

2008

Mens Sana Monogr

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The problems of the haves differ substantially from those of the have-nots. Individuals in developing societies have to fight mainly against infectious and communicable diseases, while in the developed world the battles are mainly against lifestyle diseases. Yet, at a very fundamental level, the problems are the same-the fight is against distress, disability, and premature death; against human exploitation and for human development and self-actualisation; against the callousness to critical concerns in regimes and scientific power centres.While there has been great progress in the treatment of individual diseases, human pathology continues to increase. Sicknesses are not decreasing in number, they are only changing in type.The primary diseases of poverty like TB, malaria, and HIV/AIDS-and the often co-morbid and ubiquitous malnutrition-take their toll on helpless populations in developing countries. Poverty is not just income deprivation but capability deprivation and optimism deprivation as well.While life expectancy may have increased in the haves, and infant and maternal mortality reduced, these gains have not necessarily ensured that well-being results. There are ever-multiplying numbers of individuals whose well-being is compromised due to lifestyle diseases. These diseases are the result of faulty lifestyles and the consequent crippling stress. But it serves no one's purpose to understand them as such. So, the prescription pad continues to prevail over lifestyle-change counselling or research.The struggle to achieve well-being and positive health, to ensure longevity, to combat lifestyle stress and professional burnout, and to reduce psychosomatic ailments continues unabated, with hardly an end in sight.We thus realise that morbidity, disability, and death assail all three societies: the ones with infectious diseases, the ones with diseases of poverty, and the ones with lifestyle diseases. If it is bacteria in their various forms that are the culprit in infectious diseases, it is poverty/deprivation in its various manifestations that is the culprit in poverty-related diseases, and it is lifestyle stress in its various avatars that is the culprit in lifestyle diseases. It is as though poverty and lifestyle stress have become the modern “bacteria” of developing and developed societies, respectively.For those societies afflicted with diseases of poverty, of course, the prime concern is to escape from the deadly grip of poverty-disease-deprivation-helplessness; but, while so doing, they must be careful not to land in the lap of lifestyle diseases. For the haves, the need is to seek well-being, positive health, and inner rootedness; to ask science not only to give them new pills for new ills, but to define and study how negative emotions hamper health and how positive ones promote it; to find out what is inner peace, what is the connection between spirituality and health, what is well-being, what is self-actualisation, what prevents disease, what leads to longevity, how simplicity impacts health, what attitudes ...

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…If infectious diseases and malnutrition took their toll in the earlier centuries (and in certain sections of the world even today), lifestyle diseases, chronic conditions, and neoplastic disorders are taking their toll in the present. It is almost like changing fashions in the world of disease ( Singh and Singh, 2005-2006 ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Diseases of Poverty and Lifestyle, Well-Being and Human Development

Singh¹,

Singh²

2008

Mens Sana Monogr

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Modern Medicine: Towards Prevention, Cure, Well-being and Longevity

Singh¹

2010

Mens Sana Monogr

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Modern medicine has done much in the fields of infectious diseases and emergencies to aid cure. In most other fields, it is mostly control that it aims for, which is another name for palliation. Pharmacology, psychopharmacology included, is mostly directed towards such control and palliation too. The thrust, both of clinicians and research, must now turn decisively towards prevention and cure. Also, longevity with well-being is modern medicine’s other big challenge. Advances in vaccines for hypertension, diabetes, cancers etc, deserve attention; as also, the role of meditation, yoga, spirituality etc in preventing disease at various levels. Studies on longevity, life style changes and healthy centenarians deserve special scrutiny to find what aids longevity with wellbeing. A close look at complementary and alternative medicine is needed to find any suitable models they may have, cutting aside their big talk and/or hostility towards mainstream medical care. Medicine is a manifestation of the human eros, and should not become a means of its thanatos. It must realise its true potential, so that eros prevails, and thanatos prevails only ultimately, not prematurely.

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Emphasising prevention, developing therapies, complementing approaches

Cited by 2 publications

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Diseases of Poverty and Lifestyle, Well-Being and Human Development

Diseases of Poverty and Lifestyle, Well-Being and Human Development

Modern Medicine: Towards Prevention, Cure, Well-being and Longevity

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