Integrative concept of homeostasis: translating physiology into medicine

Abstract

To truly understand living systems they must be viewed as a whole. In order to achieve this and to come to some law that living systems comply with, the reductionist approach, which has delivered a tremendous amount of data so far, should be complemented with integrative concepts. The current paper represents my humble attempt towards an integrative concept of homeostasis that would describe the (patho)physiological setup of adult human/mammal system, and that might be applicable in medicine. Homeostasis can be defined as time- and initial-condition-independent globally stabile state of non-equilibrium of a living system in which the interactions of system with the surroundings and internal processes are overall in balance or very near it. The presence of homeostasis or the shift from homeostasis of an adult human/mammal system can be described by equation that takes into account energy and informational input and output, catabolism and anabolism, oxidation and reduction, and entropy, where changes in the input should equal changes in the output within a specific period of time. Catabolism and oxidation are presented on the input side since the drive of the surroundings is to decompose and oxidize living systems, i.e. systems are under constant 'catabolic and oxidative pressure'. According to the equation, homeostasis might be regained by changing any of the input or output components in a proper manner (and within certain limits), not only the one(s) that has/have been changed in the first place resulting in the deviation from homeostasis.