{"product_id":"what-is-health-isbn-9780262043304","title":"What Is Health?","description":"\u003cb\u003eAn argument that health is \u003ci\u003eoptimal responsiveness\u003c\/i\u003e and is often best treated at the system level.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cp\u003eMedical education centers on the venerable “no-fault” concept of homeostasis, whereby local mechanisms impose constancy by correcting errors, and the brain serves mainly for emergencies. Yet, it turns out that most parameters are not constant; moreover, despite the importance of local mechanisms, the brain is definitely in charge. In this book, the eminent neuroscientist Peter Sterling describes a broader concept: \u003ci\u003eallostasis\u003c\/i\u003e (coined by Sterling and Joseph Eyer in the 1980s), whereby the brain anticipates needs and efficiently mobilizes supplies to prevent errors.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAllostasis evolved early, Sterling explains, to optimize energy efficiency, relying heavily on brain circuits that deliver a brief reward for each positive surprise. Modern life so reduces the opportunities for surprise that we are driven to seek it in consumption: bigger burgers, more opioids, and innumerable activities that involve higher carbon emissions. The consequences include addiction, obesity, type 2 diabetes, and climate change. Sterling concludes that solutions must go beyond the merely technical to restore possibilities for daily small rewards and revivify the capacities for egalitarianism that were hard-wired into our nature.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eSterling explains that allostasis offers what is not found in any medical textbook: principled definitions of health and disease: health as the capacity for adaptive variation and disease as shrinkage of that capacity. Sterling argues that since health is \u003ci\u003eoptimal responsiveness\u003c\/i\u003e, many significant conditions are best treated at the system level.\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003ePeter Sterling is Professor of Neuroscience at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine. He is the coauthor (with Simon Laughlin) of \u003ci\u003ePrinciples of Neural Design\u003c\/i\u003e (MIT Press).An argument that health is optimal responsiveness and is often best treated at the system level.","brand":"The MIT Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46301527343333,"sku":"NP9780262043304","price":40.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9780262043304.jpg?v=1767743849","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/es\/products\/what-is-health-isbn-9780262043304","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}