DIG for Disease Informatics Group
RP Deolankar
oonnatie@yahoo.com
Smoking is injurious to health
Honorable Mr. Bill Gates revolutionized IT industry
Dr. Vijay Bhatkar proved to be supercomputer superman
Prof. Kolaskar popularized bioinformatics
Now,
We are waiting for somebody
To develop Disease Informatics.
What it is?
Wealth
Lot of health can be acquired
Because health is wealth


Measure
If
Health is wealth
Then
Fitness is money
Health Currencies
Say
Fitness dollars
Measures health
F$
Health Account Scene-1
Expenditure of F$
Hardship!!!
= Disease
= Dis + Ease
> Bank Balance in F$
Health Account Scene-2
Expenditure = Bank Balance
No hardship
No disease but
Predisposed to the disease or
Not really healthy
TIME
BOMB
Health Account Scene-3
Requirement 1 fitness dollar, Balance 10 fitness dollars
Comfortable, but
Poor than the one having 100 fitness dollars
Disease and health are quantitative concepts
Not quantal
Expressed in relative terms
100F$>10F$>1F$
Health Account Scene-4
Fakir without a dollar is
much happier than Millionaire
It is human
to make error in defining the disease
We seek, but never find, absolute truth
http://www.wordinfo.info/words/index/info/view_unit/1/?letter=B&spage=3
Definition of elephant by consensus panel
http://www.wordinfo.info/words/index/info/view_unit/1/?letter=B&spage=3
Last scene
Man laid 50% in oven and 50% in freezer
Not comfortable, on an average…
Both the gadgets must be tuned for the man
Disease and health are holistic concepts
20
200
-200
Health means whole
Old. English word. hælþ indicates wholeness
Whole is not finite and difficult to measure
Measurement of fitness is common
We can ask the question “Fit for what?”
General Holistic definition of health
Health is a state of
Physical, Mental, Social, Emotional and Spiritual wellbeing
and not merely the absence of disease
Relevance of Health definition
Doctors, Social Workers, Educationists and Spiritual Leaders
contribute to the health of society
and treat diseases
Limitation of the definition of health
Health is a STATE of
…
absence of disease
State indicates static
Health is dynamic, it flows, and it is a process
Adding dynamism
Let us say,
Gaining health is a progression towards wellbeing and
Loosing health is a progression towards disease
Modern definition of health
Hence, health is a process of gaining of
Physical, Mental, Social, Emotional or Spiritual wellbeing
Let us hope that we have
defined health successfully
Health happens to an individual
Individual = % Wellbeing + % Disease
Loosing the proportion of wellbeing is loosing the health
and proportionally gaining the disease
Health examination of an individual
It is revealing certain events
in the health history of
an individual
Three aspects of health
examination
•Attempts to hunt priors (Backend
events)
•Understand present (Current
event)
•Predict posteriors (Front-end
events)
Point on the curve
Events are sections of
chains in between
‘Wellbeing’ of an individual and ‘Disease’
Ends of the chains are infinite
Complete ‘wellbeing’ and complete ‘disease’
are difficult to define
Events
Movement of process
from wellbeing to disease
can thus be judged by events
Events have depth too
Mild Disease is different than
Severe Disease
Disease causal chains
Events linked together form the Disease Causal Chain or Web
This chain can be reversed sometimes
http://bmj.bmjjournals.com/cgi/eletters/326/7394/865
Disease Causal Chains can be presented in tabular format
S.
No.
Outco
me
Back
event
-1
Back
enent
-2
Back
event
-3
4a
DhVD
a
VDa
Da
NCE
4b
DhVD
a
VDa
Da
Back
event
-4
Back
event
-5
IdIL
UM
In:
Ro
UM
IdIL
UM
In:
NRo
UM
NCE
http://bmj.bmjjournals.com/cgi/eletters/328/7443/811#105704
Database for events
The software should be derived to set aside
the combination terms (anatomical +
physiopathological) from MeSH database of
NCBI. This will provide the database for
events occurring in the DiCC.
Meta-analysis (Systematic Reviews)
Source of priors
It is practice of combining the results of a number of studies that
address a set of related research hypotheses
Professor Archibald Leman Cochrane
http://www.cochrane.org/index.htm
Disease causal chains (DiCC) and Bayes
DiCC has priors and posteriors
It is cake of Bayesian rather than frequentists
Synthesize evidence from multiple sources
Pilot studies
Trials of similar interventions
Subjective judgments about the generalisability of the
study's results
http://bmj.bmjjournals.com/cgi/content/full/319/7208/508
Factors
Certain factors are associated with movement of process
from wellbeing to disease,
which are known as risk factors or protective factors
depending on the direction of movement
Factors are variables
Most of the time, same factor could be risk or protective
depending on its magnitude and
deviation from homeostasis
http://ajp.psychiatryonline.org/cgi/content/full/158/6/848/F1
Helena Chmura Kraemer
Human individual
Disease happens to an individual
We need to understand
What the human individual appears like?
Baba Ramdev
Model Human =
Somatic body + Vitality + Mind + Intellect + Bliss
Human body computer =
Intellect (Central processing unit) + Self / Ego (Software) +
Memory (Free space, Floppy/ Hard disk) +
Mind/ senses (Program) + Life history (Data)
Human microbial organs
Gut associated microbiota organ
Vagina associated microbiota organ
Skin associated microbiota organ
Prof. Stig Bengmark
Study on human (Clinical Research)
To understand the disease of an individual
One has to understand the human and
His body computer
His associated organs
Let us summarise,
What we have discussed
about disease till now
Point no. 1
Absence of perceptible disease
may not be equated to health
but lacunae in health is disease
Point no. 2
Disease may not be apparent
when predisposing events occur
Point no. 3
In short, we all are walking
on the path today that may
result in disease of tomorrow
Point no. 4
However, bypassing the
disease is possible sometimes
So as to avoid the diseases of
tomorrow we must act today
Point no. 5
Disease predisposing events
may not be perceptible easily
and may not get attention,
however, are real stem of
disease causal chain
Point no.6
Disease is a relative
phenomenon, could mean
different to different thinkers,
and errors could be rampant in
defining the diseases
Point number 7
Disease Informatics Group has to
develop health-scoring system
Point no. 8
If disease is present then
Gravity of the disease matters