Health
With the Vision of
Molecular Biology
Dr. R. K. Mahanta, Professor and Head,
Department of Biochemistry, Jorhat Medical College
The World Health Organization (WHO) defined health in its broader
sense in 1946 as: “A state of complete physical,
mental, and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity”.
Health
In humans, it is the general condition of a person's mind, body and spirit,
usually meaning to be free from illness, injury or pain
including all the physical, mental and social aspects of living
Health
Biologically State of Health is the level of
Functional and metabolic efficiency of a
Living being with respect to the Duration of existence and environment
Health
With the Vision of
Molecular Biology
Health is a state of sustained and progressive maintenance of system
stability and durability in living systems
Health
Determinants of health
Social and Environmental• Income and social status• Social support networks• Education and literacy• Employment/working
conditions• Social environments• Physical environments
Personal and Biological• Personal health practices
and coping skills• Healthy child development• Biology and genetics• Health care services• Gender• Culture
These factors or determinants generate, maintain and modulate the quality and duration of health in a person who is a living system developed through the process of evolution to the highest level of system organization, maintenance and objective persistence detected in the universe till date
Health
Health and Molecular Biology
After all health is a vector state of a living system concerned with the wellbeing of the system as
well as of other interactive living systems
Health is vector in scale because it includes both how much and how long towards system
durability
As health is present in living systems and
living systems are best studied or explored by tools of
Molecular Biology, it is very helpful to have some familiarity with the living
system through the perspective of Molecular Biology
to understand or perceive the deeper meanings of health
Health and Molecular Biology
Molecular Biology
The scientific discipline that study the molecular behavior
under interactive universal physicochemical forces
associated with formation, maintenance and replication
of living systems and character of molecules
originating in living systems
Molecular Biology study The total Biology of living Molecules
not the fraction of chemistry involved in Living
Therefore we study Molecularbiology not Biochemistry
Life Life is the cumulative chronological outcome of
a thermodynamically open isothermal, dynamic, non equilibrating physicochemical system characterized with capacity for precise self
assembly, self regulation and self replication with maintenance of system enthalpy at the
expense of exponential increase in extra system entropy modulated by information molecules for system regulation and transmittable during
system replication and system recombination to increase system durability
The living systems
• The demarcated volume of universe with characters of life is designated as a living system.
• The dynamic molecular bilayer that separates the system from the environment is the system membrane.
The Living Process and State
• The events going on in a living system is the living process.
• The dynamic non equilibrating stage of the
system is the living state.
The Events and Participants
• The chemical changes and events in the living system is metabolism.
• The molecules taking part in system
maintenance are the metabolites
Deviations, Remedies and Outcome
• Deviation of system status towards equilibrium is disease.
• Procedures taken to revert back system deviations towards evolutionally accepted status is treatment.
• Irreversible system deviation producing system equilibrium is death.
System Health
Health is a state in the living system conducive for maintenance of optimum balance between
system enthalpy and extra system entropy resulting in enhanced system efficiency and
extension of system durability
Factors affecting system health
Intrinsic(Genomic)
• Epigenomic• Nutrigenomic• Metabolomic
Extrinsic(Non Genomic)
• Physical• Chemical• Biological• Informational
Epigenomics• Epigenomics is the study of the complete set of
epigenetic modifications on the genetic material of a cell, known as the epigenome.
• Epigenetic modifications are reversible modifications on a cell’s DNA or histones that affect gene expression without altering the DNA sequence
• Epigenetic modifications play an important role in gene expression and regulation
• It is involved in numerous cellular processes such as differentiation, development and tumorigenesis
Nutrigenomics
• Nutrigenomics is the study of the effects of foods and food constituents on gene expression.
• It is about how our DNA is transcribed into mRNA and then to proteins and provides a basis for understanding the biological activity of food components
Nutrigenomics
• Nutrigenomics also describe the influence of genetic variation on nutrition.
• It correlate gene expression with a nutrient's absorption, metabolism, elimination or biological effects.
• By doing so, nutrigenomics aims to develop rational means to optimise nutrition, with respect to the subject's genotype.
• Nutrigenomics tries to define the relationship between specific nutrients and specific nutrient regimes (diets) on human health by determining the mechanism of the effects of nutrients or a nutritional regime.
• Nutrigenomics has been associated with the idea of personalized nutrition based on genotype.
• There is hope that nutrigenomics will ultimately enable personalized dietary advice.
• It is a science still in its infancy and its contribution to public health over the next decade is thought to be major.
Nutrigenomics
Metabolomics
• Metabolomics is the scientific study of chemical processes involving metabolites.
• The metabolome represents the collection of all metabolites in a biological cell, tissue, organ or organism, which are the end products of cellular processes.
• Metabolome refers to the complete set of small-molecule metabolites such as metabolic intermediates, hormones and other signaling molecules, and secondary metabolites to be found within a biological system such as a single organism.
Factors affecting system health
Extrinsic(Non Genomic)
• Physical• Chemical• Biological• Informational
Factors affecting system health
Extrinsic(Non Genomic)
• Physical• Chemical• Biological• Informational
Factors affecting system health
Extrinsic(Non Genomic)
• Physical• Chemical• Biological• Informational
Factors affecting system healthExtrinsic
(Non Genomic)
Informational
Outside Factors influencing the
mind
So health is an intricate and delicate product of multiple of
internal and external factors acting simultaneously in and on a living system commonly known as an
organism and specifically for us as a human being
A healthy system do not make other systems unhealthy
andA healthy person do not utter
unhealthy words