title: Healthy ageing, but what is health?
abstract: Ageing occurs in spite of complex pathways of maintenance and repair. There is no "enemy within", which has the specific evolution-selected function to cause ageing and death. This understanding of ageing should transform our approach towards interventions from therapeutic "anti-ageing" to maintaining health. But what is health? Ideally, health is a state of complete physical and mental independence in activities of daily living. But in pragmatic terms, health is a state of adequate physical and mental independence in activities of daily living. In order to identify a set of measurable, evidence-based and demonstratable parameters of health, robustness and resilience at various levels, the concept of homeodynamic space can be a useful one. Age-related health problems for which there are no clear-cut causative agents, except the complex process of ageing, may be better tackled by focusing on health mechanisms and their maintenance, rather than disease management and treatment. Continuing the disease-oriented research approaches are economically, socially and psychologically unsustainable as compared with health-oriented and preventive strategies, such as hormesis. Supporting health-oriented research is the urgency of our time.
authors.affiliation: Laboratory of Cellular Ageing, Department of Molecular Biology and Genetics, University of Aarhus, Gustav Wieds Vej 10, 8000, Aarhus C, Denmark, rattan@mb.au.dk.
authors.forename: Suresh I S
authors.initials: SI
authors.lastname: Rattan
mesh_terms: D000203:Activities of Daily Living; D000367:Age Factors; D000375:Aging; D000818:Animals; D006304:Health Status; D006706:Homeostasis; D006801:Humans; D008603:Mental Health; D009043:Motor Activity