Related papers: Structured psychosocial stress and the US obesity …
Generalized language-of-thought arguments appropriate to interacting cognitive modules permit exploration of how disease states interact with medical treatment. The interpenetrating feedback between treatment and response to it creates a…
We examine interacting cognitive modules of human biology which, in the asymptotic limit of long sequences of responses, define the output of an appropriate 'dual' information source. Applying a 'necessary condition' communication theory…
More than one-third of the adult population in the United States is obese. Obesity has been linked to factors such as, genetics, diet, physical activity and the environment. However, evidence indicating associations between the built…
As we navigate our cultural environment, we learn cultural biases, like those around gender, social class, health, and body weight. It is unclear, however, exactly how public culture becomes private culture. In this paper, we provide a…
Non-communicable diseases like diabetes, obesity and certain forms of cancer have been increasing in many countries at alarming levels. A difficulty in the conception of policies to reverse these trends is the identification of the drivers…
Large-scale hazards affect societies not only through direct physical impacts but also through emotions that spread across populations. Fueled by social amplification and networked communication, collective emotions often diverge markedly…
Opioid overdose has emerged as a full blown epidemic in the United States. In the last few years, there has been an alarming increase in Opioid related deaths, resulting in the loss of 63,600 lives in 2016 alone. The epidemic which is…
In the context of the global obesity epidemic, it is important to know who becomes obese and why. However, the processes that determine the changing shape of Body Mass Index (BMI) distributions in high-income societies are not…
Obesity affects a rising percentage of the children and adolescent population, contributing to decreased quality of life and increased risk for comorbidities. Although the major causes of obesity are known, the obesogenic behaviors manifest…
Examining elevated rates of systemic lupus erythematosus in African-American women from perspectives of immune cognition suggests the disease constitutes an internalized physiological image of external structured psychosocial stress, a…
Despite global connectivity, societies seem to be increasingly polarized and fragmented. This phenomenon is rooted in the underlying complex structure and dynamics of social systems. Far from homogeneously mixing or adopting conforming…
Because obesity is a risk factor for many serious illnesses such as diabetes, better understandings of obesity and eating disorders have been attracting attention in neurobiology, psychiatry, and neuroeconomics. This paper presents future…
COVID-19 has resulted in a public health global crisis. The pandemic control necessitates epidemic models that capture the trends and impacts on infectious individuals. Many exciting models can implement this but they lack practical…
Obesity is one of the leading health concerns in the United States. Researchers and health care providers are interested in understanding factors affecting obesity and detecting the likelihood of obesity as early as possible. In this paper,…
Suppose, contrary to fact, in 1950, we had put the cohort of 18 year old non-smoking American men on a stringent mandatory diet that guaranteed that no one would ever weigh more than their baseline weight established at age 18. How would…
Assessing and managing the impact of large-scale epidemics considering only the individual risk and severity of the disease is exceedingly difficult and could be extremely expensive. Economic consequences, infrastructure and service…
Using the economic complexity methodology on data for disease prevalence in 195 countries during the period of 1990-2016, we propose two new metrics for quantifying the relatedness between diseases, or the `disease space' of countries. With…
In many real growing networks the mean number of connections per vertex increases with time. The Internet, the Word Wide Web, collaboration networks, and many others display this behavior. Such a growth can be called {\em accelerated}. We…
The opioid epidemic in the United States claims over 40,000 lives per year, and it is estimated that well over two million Americans have an opioid use disorder. Over-prescription and misuse of prescription opioids play an important role in…
Mental stress is a vague though familiar concept that accounts for an agency of the good, the bad and the ugly, that operates in the brains of animated beings, in response to environmental stressors. In this work, we provide evidence for…