Although researchers are paying closer attention to mental health than ever before, our usual notions of healthy aging are still very centered on pathology—that is, diseases like cancer, diabetes, or hypertension. A new study suggests that, whether a person is healthy or not is a more complicated matter, and it has little to do with age.
“Health has long been conceived as not just the absence of disease but also the presence of physical, psychological, and social well-being,” write Martha McClintock and her colleagues in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. “Nonetheless, the traditional medical model focuses on specific organ system diseases,” such as heart problems, diabetes, or cancer.
Of course, any concrete, measurable notion of health is going to involve some tough choices. The trouble, McClintock and her colleagues write, is that the current default definition is based on century-old medical ideas that center on pathology, physiology, and biochemistry. That antiquated definition presents two distinct problems. First, it frames ill health as a failure of a particular system, such as the kidneys or lungs. In reality, multiple systems fail at once when people, particularly the elderly, are sick. Second, that definition largely ignores other factors that matter for health, such as exercise, clear vision and hearing, and mobility.
[For more of this story, written by Nathan Collins, go to https://psmag.com/good-health-...6c586874d#.8pw54mp8h]
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