Rethinking Homeostasis

Rethinking Homeostasis

Author: Jay Schulkin

Publisher: MIT Press

Published: 2003

Total Pages: 332

ISBN-13: 9780262194808

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An overview of allostasis, the process by which the body maintains overall viability under normal and adverse conditions.


Homeostasis

Homeostasis

Author: Fernanda Lasakosvitsch Castanho

Publisher: BoD – Books on Demand

Published: 2019-01-30

Total Pages: 174

ISBN-13: 1789850770

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The human body is composed of several systems and organs, consisting of millions of cells that need relatively stable conditions to function and contribute to the survival of the body as a whole. The maintenance of stable conditions for the cells against the variations of the external environment is an essential function of the body and is called homeostasis. As a consequence of the loss of homeostasis, a disease is manifested. This book aims to provide the reader with an up-to-date view of the self-regulatory mechanisms that are activated to achieve homeostasis, the pathways that are altered during the disease process, and how medicine can intervene to restore balance in critical patients.


Rheostasis

Rheostasis

Author: Nicholas Mrosovsky

Publisher: New York : Oxford University Press

Published: 1990

Total Pages: 200

ISBN-13:

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This work offers a comprehensive re-examination and elaboration of homeostasis, a guiding principle in physiology that has received surprisingly little critical evaluation. Among the key topics addressed are questions concerning the competing demands of different regulatory systems within the body and the problem of maintaining equilibrium in such circumstances. The author makes the important point that the body does not always seek constancy of its internal environment, nor does it always react in ways that prevent change. On the contrary, sometimes physiological mechanisms actively promote change. These changes in regulated levels--termed "rheostasis"--are seen as having an adaptive value beyond a simple failure of homeostasis. This book compares and categorizes examples of rheostasis for a variety of physiological variables, and presents what is known about conflicts between different regulatory systems and their role in promoting the occurrence of rheostasis. Among other topics covered are weight loss during hibernation, calcium storage and reproduction, fever, and rates of fat deposition in adults. The work of an outstanding scholar, this integrative study represents a refreshing and essential new approach to one of the basic concepts in physiological science.


Missed Information

Missed Information

Author: David Sarokin

Publisher: MIT Press

Published: 2016-08-26

Total Pages: 261

ISBN-13: 0262034921

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How better information and better access to it improves the quality of our decisions and makes for a more vibrant participatory society. Information is power. It drives commerce, protects nations, and forms the backbone of systems that range from health care to high finance. Yet despite the avalanche of data available in today's information age, neither institutions nor individuals get the information they truly need to make well-informed decisions. Faulty information and sub-optimal decision-making create an imbalance of power that is exaggerated as governments and corporations amass enormous databases on each of us. Who has more power: the government, in possession of uncounted terabytes of data (some of it obtained by cybersnooping), or the ordinary citizen, trying to get in touch with a government agency? In Missed Information, David Sarokin and Jay Schulkin explore information—not information technology, but information itself—as a central part of our lives and institutions. They show that providing better information and better access to it improves the quality of our decisions and makes for a more vibrant participatory society. Sarokin and Schulkin argue that freely flowing information helps systems run more efficiently and that incomplete information does just the opposite. It's easier to comparison shop for microwave ovens than for doctors or hospitals because of information gaps that hinder the entire health-care system. Better information about such social ills as child labor and pollution can help consumers support more sustainable products. The authors examine the opacity of corporate annual reports, the impenetrability of government secrets, and emerging techniques of “information foraging.” The information imbalance of power can be reconfigured, they argue, with greater and more meaningful transparency from government and corporations.


Protein Homeostasis Diseases

Protein Homeostasis Diseases

Author: Angel L. Pey

Publisher: Academic Press

Published: 2020-02-13

Total Pages: 450

ISBN-13: 0128191333

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Protein Homeostasis Diseases: Mechanisms and Novel Therapies offers an interdisciplinary examination of the fundamental aspects, biochemistry and molecular biology of protein homeostasis disease, including the use of natural and pharmacological small molecules to treat common and rare protein homeostasis disorders. Contributions from international experts discuss the biochemical and genetic components of protein homeostasis disorders, the mechanisms by which genetic variants may cause loss-of-function and gain-of-toxic-function, and how natural ligands can restore protein function and homeostasis in genetic diseases. Applied chapters provide guidance on employing high throughput sequencing and screening methodologies to develop pharmacological chaperones and repurpose approved drugs to treat protein homeostasis disorders. Provides an interdisciplinary examination of protein homeostasis disorders, with an emphasis on treatment strategies employing small natural and pharmacological ligands Offers applied approaches in employing high throughput sequencing and screening to develop pharmacological chaperones to treat protein homeostasis disease Gathers expertise from a range of international chapter authors who work across various biological methods and disease specific disciplines of relevance


What Is Health?

What Is Health?

Author: Peter Sterling

Publisher: MIT Press

Published: 2020-02-25

Total Pages: 259

ISBN-13: 0262043300

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An argument that health is optimal responsiveness and is often best treated at the system level. Medical 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: allostasis (coined by Sterling and Joseph Eyer in the 1980s), whereby the brain anticipates needs and efficiently mobilizes supplies to prevent errors. Allostasis 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. Sterling 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 optimal responsiveness, many significant conditions are best treated at the system level.