What Is Health?

What is it all about - health? How to imagine it? There are many definitions - from the children's “Health is when nothing hurts” to the scientific one formulated by the World Health Organization: “Health is not only the absence of illness and weakness, but a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being”. For most people, health is a normal condition that we usually don’t recognize or pay attention to, like we don’t think about our breathing, or how our heart beats. Someone wisely said: "The feeling of health is acquired only after a disease." This “invisibility” of his can cause a thoughtless attitude to his own health, which is fatal to many. The most primitive and widespread understanding of health is the state of the body when there is no disease. Even doctors often act on it: “There is no disease - healthy, we have nothing to do with you. That's when you get sick, come. " But health is not something permanent and unchanging. It also needs attention and control. Health needs to be maintained and strengthened. I think in the future, when the main concern of medicine will be to prevent the disease, and not to treat it, the doctor will not conduct a "medical history", but a "medical history".

Diseases have been studied to the genetic molecular level, and many doctors even know little about health and don’t want to deal with it: “Not good health, there is no time and energy to cope with diseases.” In addition, healthy people do not go to doctors. Therefore, doctors at all times mainly dealt with patients and studied diseases. Another academician of medicine N.M. Amosov admitted: "All doctors are specialists in diseases, not health." Although in the word "health care" the main meaning is indicated: protection of health, not treatment of diseases. In one of the magazines, a curious tablet was published showing the results of an international survey of groups of people from different countries of Europe comparable in age and social status. All respondents were asked to rate their health. Details and conditions of the survey were not reported, therefore it is difficult to judge their objectivity, but according to the results presented, the proportion of people who rate their health as good was in different countries:

Norway - 81%

Netherlands –78%

Finland - 69%

Italy - 62%

Portugal - 41%

Latvia - 29%,

Russia - 22%

Ukraine - 8%.

I think these figures reflect certain differences between people from different countries both in health status and in understanding what this means, as well as differences in health culture and lifestyle.Sad data were obtained from a recent clinical examination (preventive examinations) of the Russian population, which reached about 17 million people. The results showed that only slightly more than 30% of the examined individuals were practically healthy. Today, based on a synthesis of numerous studies in the field of epidemiology and etiology of most human diseases, it can be argued that more than 80% of the opportunities to maintain health depend on your own will and behavior, 15 - on the society and environment in which you live, and only 5% - from the doctor. Therefore, the preservation of health should be provided primarily by their own knowledge and efforts, the role of doctors is secondary here. And it is also very important to understand that the health given to us by nature, from birth cannot be preserved, it must be developed and maintained constantly. Lack of attention to him and care about him is one of the most common initial causes of many diseases. And another important pattern: many diseases and ailments of the elderly arise in youth. In the initial stages, for 10-30 years, they can occur without noticeable symptoms, inconvenience and sensations (atherosclerosis, many tumors, etc.). At the same time, with attention to their health, they could be prevented in a timely manner or stopped their development.