http://hdl.handle.net/1813/24419 Sat, 18 May 2013 17:10:12 GMT 2013-05-18T17:10:12Z http://ecommons.library.cornell.edu:80/retrieve/118375/facultyphoto1.jpg http://hdl.handle.net/1813/24419 http://hdl.handle.net/1813/31541 Title: The Completed Self: An Immunological View of the Human-Microbiome Superorganism and Risk of Chronic Diseases Authors: Dietert, Rodney; Dietert, Janice Abstract: In this review, we discuss an immunological-driven sign termed the Completed Self, which is related to a holistic determination of health vs. disease. This sign (human plus commensal microbiota) forms the human superorganism. The worldwide emergence of an epidemic of chronic diseases has caused increased healthcare costs, increased premature mortality and reduced quality of life for a majority of the world’s population. In addition, it has raised questions concerning the interactions between humans and their environment and potential imbalances. Misregulated inflammation, a host defense-homeostasis disorder, appears to be a key biomarker connecting a majority of chronic diseases. We consider the apparent contributors to this disorder that promote a web of interlinked comorbid conditions. Three key events are suggested to play a role: (1) altered epigenetic programming (AEP) that may span multiple generations, (2) developmental immunotoxicity (DIT), and (3) failure to adequately incorporate commensal microbes as a newborn (i.e., the incomplete self). We discuss how these three events can combine to determine whether the human superorganism is able to adequately and completely form during early childhood. We also discuss how corruption of this event can affect the risk of later-life diseases. Thu, 25 Oct 2012 00:00:00 GMT http://hdl.handle.net/1813/31541 2012-10-25T00:00:00Z http://hdl.handle.net/1813/31539 Title: Energy Medicine and the Path to Globally-Sustainable Health Authors: Dietert, Rodney R.; Jonsson, Melissa Joy; Mengistu, Kidest; Dietert, Janice M. Abstract: This paper provides key points regarding the significance of energy medicine, a category of complementary and alternative medicine, to a global healthcare approach that is accessible, inclusive, individually-tailored, holistic, and sustainable. The ongoing epidemic of chronic diseases has stretched healthcare systems beyond their capacities, revealed fundamental inadequacies (e.g., to provide equitable access, holistically-driven health and well-being, and a life-course approach to quality of life), and shown that the current approach is unsustainable. Energy Medicine facilitates a way forward for an integrative and sustainable global health approach that redirects care toward greater order vs. disorder and ease vs. dis-ease for individuals and communities. Mon, 04 Mar 2013 00:00:00 GMT http://hdl.handle.net/1813/31539 2013-03-04T00:00:00Z http://hdl.handle.net/1813/24421 Title: Breaking patterns of environmentally influenced disease for health risk reduction: immune perspectives Authors: Dietert, Rodney R.; DeWitt, Jamie C.; Germolec, Dori R.; Zelikoff, Judith T. Abstract: BACKGROUND: Diseases rarely, if ever, occur in isolation. Instead, most represent part of a more complex web or "pattern" of conditions that are connected via underlying biological mechanisms and processes, emerge across a lifetime, and have been identified with the aid of large medical databases. OBJECTIVE: We have described how an understanding of patterns of disease may be used to develop new strategies for reducing the prevalence and risk of major immune-based illnesses and diseases influenced by environmental stimuli. FINDINGS: Examples of recently defined patterns of diseases that begin in childhood include not only metabolic syndrome, with its characteristics of inflammatory dysregulation, but also allergic, autoimmune, recurrent infection, and other inflammatory patterns of disease. The recent identification of major immune-based disease patterns beginning in childhood suggests that the immune system may play an even more important role in determining health status and health care needs across a lifetime than was previously understood. CONCLUSIONS: Focusing on patterns of disease, as opposed to individual conditions, offers two important venues for environmental health risk reduction. First, prevention of developmental immunotoxicity and pediatric immune dysfunction can be used to act against multiple diseases. Second, pattern-based treatment of entryway diseases can be tailored with the aim of disrupting the entire disease pattern and reducing the risk of later-life illnesses connected to underlying immune dysfunction. Disease-pattern-based evaluation, prevention, and treatment will require a change from the current approach for both immune safety testing and pediatric disease management. Sun, 01 Aug 2010 00:00:00 GMT http://hdl.handle.net/1813/24421 2010-08-01T00:00:00Z