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Related Experiment Video

Updated: May 11, 2026

An Application for Pairing with Wearable Devices to Monitor Personal Health Status

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Published on: February 3, 2022

What is health?

Harald Brüssow¹

¹Nestlé Research Center, BioAnalytical Sciences, Food and Health Microbiology, Lausanne, Switzerland. harald.bruessow@rdls.nestle.com

Microbial Biotechnology

|May 8, 2013

Summary

This summary is machine-generated.

Defining health is complex, moving beyond disease absence to encompass adaptability and wholeness. Quantifiable metrics like healthy life expectancy are crucial for understanding healthy aging and societal well-being.

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Area of Science:

Gerontology
Public Health
Microbiology

Background:

Traditional medicine defines health as the absence of disease.
Modern definitions emphasize adaptability and wholeness, aligning with WHO and linguistic concepts.
The 2010 Global Burden of Disease study offers quantifiable health metrics.

Purpose of the Study:

To explore the challenges in defining health, particularly in the context of aging.
To highlight the importance of quantifiable health metrics for societal well-being.
To inform microbiologists about health definition issues relevant to the gut microbiome's role.

Main Methods:

Review of classical and contemporary health definitions.
Analysis of the 2010 Global Burden of Disease study for health metrics.
Discussion of theories on lifespan determination and aging.

Main Results:

Health is increasingly defined by capacity to adapt, not just disease absence.
Healthy life expectancy provides a quantifiable measure of population health.
Achieving healthy aging is a key societal goal linked to lifespan and morbidity compression.

Conclusions:

A clear, quantifiable definition of health is essential for research and policy.
Understanding health metrics is vital for addressing challenges of aging populations.
The gut microbiome's impact on health necessitates awareness of evolving health definitions.