Glossary
C
conception : creation of a new human whenever the feminine contribution (production of a mature ovule) coincides with the masculine contribution (fecundation of this ovule).
D
dissipation : (in thermodynamics) degradation of free energy (mechanical, chemical or from light) into heat, either directly or through any chain of physical/chemical processes this energy contributes to perform. When this chain of processes is a living object, the dissipation of energy contributes to the growth, the maintenance and the functions of the object, one of which is to produce "external work". Human examle: to carry a bag of rice (+ the weight of who carries the bag) from ground floor to some upper floor of a house. When the chain of processes is a machine using fossil fuel, the dissipation of energy only contributes to the function of the motor. Human example: to displace a person (+ the weight of the car the person is driving) from one town to another, without any growth nor maintenance of the motor. See also: individual power dissipation (IPD).
Distant Early Warning (acronym DEW), used here as the metaphor created in 1964 by Marshall McLuhan: a DEW can "tell the old culture what is beginning to happen to it". More specifically in the present context, fundamental epigenetic knowledge is the harbinger of what true health promotion (health promotion par excellence) is about to be.
E
economic power : monetary equivalent of individual power dissipation (IPD). According to Majid Rahnema and Jean Robert (in: La Puissance des Pauvres, Ates Sud, Paris 2008), one should be conscious of a difference in quality between IPD and economic power. The latter is but the amount of money (be it from an income or from a capital) the individual can dissipate per unit time, only to increase its capital by profitable investments. The saying that "to earn money you must spend money" (note the opposition with what most employees think : to spend money you must earn money), should not let us forget that any investment's rentability is always at the expense of natural resources, in particular through appropriation of part of other humans' IPD, with collateral damages for humanity and its habitat that we all underestimate, either by ignorance or, for some of us, by feint.
epigenetics : a branch of molecular biology dealing with complex chains of physiological processes which constantly regulate the degree of activation of each and every DNA element within every cell, without modifying the unique sequence of nucleotides characterizing a gene (hence the prefix epi). The activity of such processes – essentially dependent on the organism’s social, affective and physical environments via its internal ones (interstitial, cytoplasmic, intranuclear) – is particularly intense during the primal period of life [15].
epigenetic revolution : a new biological paradigm whose social consequences are still vigorously reacted upon. In France, for example, a 'Collectif Pasde0deconduite' was created in 2006 by 'professionals of childhood and family' to react against an 'Expertise collective' organized by Inserm (Institut national de la santé et de la recherche médicale) entitled "Troubles des conduites chez l'enfant et l'adolescent" (Ed. Inserm 2005, 101, rue de Tolbiac, 75654 Paris cedex 13). More, Pasde0deconduite was successful in rejecting a March 2007 law on delinquency prevention based on the concepts, methods and conclusions the group of experts had derived from the scientific evidence at their disposal at mid 2005 (i.e., more than 1000 articles and documents).
G
gene : here, any one of the DNA elements that is related to the production of many different proteins. An impressive, finely modulated array of epigenetic processes can indeed operate many different transcriptions of its unique genetic-code message (and therefore many different translations into proteins). All together, our 22'000 (or so) genes (that we call here our genome) make up only about 2% of our DNA (therefore 98% of our DNA is in fact part of our epi-genomic environment).
H
health promotion : a public-health domain that is poorly defined – at least according to the current definition of public health as «the science and art of preventing disease, prolonging life as well as promoting health through organized efforts and informed choices of society, organizations (public and private), communities and individuals». More focused definitions of health promotion appear to have evolved in the course of history. Today, this worn-out expression seems to have boiled down to: «the science and art of helping people change their lifestyle to move toward a state of optimal health». Unfortunately, as was clearly shown by Leonard Syme in 2005 already [57], all efforts to help adult people regain health by changing their lifestyle have proved practically useless.
hormonal euphoria : sporadic states of elation in pregnant women under the effect of their own oxytocin and beta-endorphins production. Spontaneous peak production of these hormones during unprovoked labor triggers primal maternal instinct and helps parturient women transcend pain and reach a state of modified consciousness which propels them “on another planet”.
huge immortal persons : according to Noam Chomsky [42], transcontinental corporations (as opposed to persons of flesh and blood).
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humoral-tactile-affective environment : here, humoral refers to the psycho-neuro-immunological complex of the subject as influenced by its environment, tactile to the subject’s sensorium as influenced by its environment, affective to all manifestations of attention to the subject’s existence – and of response to its own manifestations – by persons of its environment. In vernacular societies [38] – and in industrial ones as well – carrying a baby in close contact with one’s skin for six months after birth is a significant part of a good humoral-tactile-affective environment [58].
I
individual power dissipation (IPD) : rate of free energy dissipation by any single living entity. Living objects are more alive, the more efficiently they gather energy from their enviroment. Every living object is a dissipative structure, which means that, being unstable at its functioning temperature, it constantly needs to dissipate a certain flux of chemical energy (and/or energy from light for organisms performing photosynthesis) in order to maintain its structure and functions. Overall, a human's DPI serves its growth, maintenance and functions, one of which is doing "external work" in a broad sense, per unit time. Examples : for the sake of a company, the long-term intellectual efforts of its CEO (as evaluated from accounted periods of the company over a certain time), as well as the know-how and long-term muscular efforts associated to the functions of a truck driver of the same company. It is this part of the DPI of any employee which is of interest for any employer in a broad sense (example for a company: the body of shareholders via the administration and the rest of the hierarchical pyramid), and justifies the wages this employer concedes to this employee.
By and large, an organism's IPD is the larger, the larger the hold of its species on its environment in the course of evolution has allowed it to gather more energy to sustain a more costly functioning. The apparent circularity of the argument is only due to our habit of assimilating a living organism to a machine. Whereas it is legitimate, as far as any machine is concerned, to assert that its structure – as conceived by the ingineer – is the "cause" of its function, it is absolutely not the case as far as any living object is concerned.
Physical constrains always tend to create functional structures that'll contribute to alleviate them. This is but a generalization of the Le Châtelier-Braun principle (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Le_Chatelier's_principle) to systems which wouldn't be maintained whithout a flow of energy (i.e., functional structures). For example, in the famous water-dish experiment of Bénard (fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cellules_de_Bénard), the constraint exerted on a horizontal water layer by a vertical temperature gradient creates, within the water phase, a functional structure which would diminish the constraint with respect to what it would be in the absence of this structure. And if the constraint is maintained at its initial value (which is the case in the Bénard experiment), the structure's function is to increase the vertical flux of heat across the water layer (i.e. this heat flux is the expression of the tendency to dissipate a temperature gradient by the dissipative structure created by this very gradient). In both cases, there is no cause-effect relationship whatsoever between structure (here the hexagonal cells of water convection) and function (here the increased heat flux due to the increased overall conductance of the water layer, of which the dissipative structure is responsible). Structure and function are generated simultaneously under the effect of the constraint (here a temperature gradient). Same for living structures and functions: they appeared – and continue to appear, be sustained, work and evolve – under the effect of (and at the same time as) multiple constraints which all depend, more or less directly (very indirectly as far as the ones resulting from the combustion of fossil fuels are concerned), on sun radiations our planet receives. More indirectly than directly for those which do not 'enjoy' the photosynthetic function, living objects always gather part of the energy flux whose primal source is solar energy: the flux of energy they draw from their vegetal and animal foodstuffs, and the one they draw from the combustion of fossil fuels. By and large, creation, maintenance, "external work" and evolution of all terrestrial dissipative structures depend on solar energy. Besides, evolution appears to be towards a progressive increase of complexity, instability and IPD.
Finally, it is also at the expense of this primal source and other resources drawn from its environment (like raw materials and part of other beings' IPD) that an individual can yet increase its economic power, which is but a monetary equivalent of IPD.
By and large, an organism's IPD is the larger, the larger the hold of its species on its environment in the course of evolution has allowed it to gather more energy to sustain a more costly functioning. The apparent circularity of the argument is only due to our habit of assimilating a living organism to a machine. Whereas it is legitimate, as far as any machine is concerned, to assert that its structure – as conceived by the ingineer – is the "cause" of its function, it is absolutely not the case as far as any living object is concerned.
Physical constrains always tend to create functional structures that'll contribute to alleviate them. This is but a generalization of the Le Châtelier-Braun principle (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Le_Chatelier's_principle) to systems which wouldn't be maintained whithout a flow of energy (i.e., functional structures). For example, in the famous water-dish experiment of Bénard (fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cellules_de_Bénard), the constraint exerted on a horizontal water layer by a vertical temperature gradient creates, within the water phase, a functional structure which would diminish the constraint with respect to what it would be in the absence of this structure. And if the constraint is maintained at its initial value (which is the case in the Bénard experiment), the structure's function is to increase the vertical flux of heat across the water layer (i.e. this heat flux is the expression of the tendency to dissipate a temperature gradient by the dissipative structure created by this very gradient). In both cases, there is no cause-effect relationship whatsoever between structure (here the hexagonal cells of water convection) and function (here the increased heat flux due to the increased overall conductance of the water layer, of which the dissipative structure is responsible). Structure and function are generated simultaneously under the effect of the constraint (here a temperature gradient). Same for living structures and functions: they appeared – and continue to appear, be sustained, work and evolve – under the effect of (and at the same time as) multiple constraints which all depend, more or less directly (very indirectly as far as the ones resulting from the combustion of fossil fuels are concerned), on sun radiations our planet receives. More indirectly than directly for those which do not 'enjoy' the photosynthetic function, living objects always gather part of the energy flux whose primal source is solar energy: the flux of energy they draw from their vegetal and animal foodstuffs, and the one they draw from the combustion of fossil fuels. By and large, creation, maintenance, "external work" and evolution of all terrestrial dissipative structures depend on solar energy. Besides, evolution appears to be towards a progressive increase of complexity, instability and IPD.
Finally, it is also at the expense of this primal source and other resources drawn from its environment (like raw materials and part of other beings' IPD) that an individual can yet increase its economic power, which is but a monetary equivalent of IPD.
individuation : lifelong process of personality maturation (see also [34]).
N
"new parents": those parents-to-be who make arrangements to escape societal stress during their offspring’s primal period because they've understood how the biological impacts of their own stress, during this critical period, would compromise the development of their child's personality and health.
P
persons of flesh and blood : human persons.
primal period : in French, période primale. Period of human life (approximately twenty-one months) between conception and first birthday, as defined by the Primal Health Research Centre, London. See also, under database keyword search - birthworks, numerous references relating to primal period. The embryon/foetus/newborn will enjoy an optimal humoral-tactile-affective environment whenever its parents will have arranged to live a stressless life during its primal period.
primal prevention : Based on a sound understanding of recent life-sciences achievements, any measures taken to secure the health of newly conceived offspring during their primal period of life in order to help them build their future health as adults. Primal prevention aught to be the first structural-prevention objective, as clearly distinguished from more traditional ones (like addictions' prevention, diseases' prevention, incentives to live a more healthy life). The latter have indeed been considered "a profoundly bad value for money" [51].
primal therapy : cathartic therapy based on revivals of unfavorable physical and affective experiences the subject had undergone during his primal period of life. It aims at 'removing' – or at the very least couteracting – the epigenetic imprints of such experiences.
psychosocial disease : the whole galaxy of the pathological consequences of our being chronically exposed to psycho-social risk factors [59]. It is potentially pandemic in advanced societies [37].
R
resilience : here, the acquired degree of easyness with which a person may recover from a deprivation, or from any traumatic experience. In the fifties, on Kauai island (Hawai), two psychologists from Davis University, California, who had examined 837 newborns and had followed them until childhood observed the following: among those who, later, underwent deprivation or a traumatic episode, some did beneficiate from "individual qualities" allowing them to spontaneously recover, whereas others didn't. Today, attachement theories in psychology invoke a genetic heritage-independent "good temperament". That only children who had enjoyed favorable environmental conditions during their primal life were endowed with such a favorable temperament has, alas, been masked by a widely mediatized misunderstanding until 2010. Only then did Boris Cyrulnic admit, on the basis of his own history [60], that this "good temperament", or this "goût du monde", is a "pre-verbal, very precocious acquisition from the first months of life". More precisely, it results from favorable epigenetic imprints from primal life, and therefore corresponds to the present definition of resilience.
S
scholé : Greek word for leisure. State of being free from the need to labor, which allows one to have enough time available for "receptive understanding with respect to personal experience". It is during this precious time – as opposed, for example, to time squandered consuming mass entertainment – that one’s individuation process can take place.
social epidemiology : here, discipline whose object is to observe the distribution of various indices of ill health in communities, and to look for social determinants of this distribution.
societal stress, or chronic stress : Insidious, environmental stress caused by inequality and competitiveness in advanced societies. Everyone endures it, especially young adults in populations characterized by large mean-income differences between upper and lower quintiles [16; 18].
Note that, in contrast with chronic stress, acute stress plays an essential role in normal physiology, in particular during the undisturbed birthing process, for both mother and child (see for example Michel Odent, The Birth of Homo, the Marine Chimpanzee, Pinter and Martin, 2017).
Note that, in contrast with chronic stress, acute stress plays an essential role in normal physiology, in particular during the undisturbed birthing process, for both mother and child (see for example Michel Odent, The Birth of Homo, the Marine Chimpanzee, Pinter and Martin, 2017).
T
Takers : in Daniel Quinn’s celebrated book Ishmael [41] and its sequel, My Ishmael [25], Takers are those humans who, some ten thousand years ago, started appropriating common environmental resources, including part of other humans’ individual power dissipation (IPD). Since then, by luring everybody, including themselves, into devoting their time budget more and more exclusively to work and entertainment – and therefore less and less to scholè – they’ve come to threaten everybody’s survival. Their interest ideology (according to which everyone should be free to appropriate part of others’ IPD) contrasts with Leavers’ right ideology (according to which every human should rightly enjoy all of his IPD).
the power game : a game whose rules, favoring winners, are imposed on the world – with vastly underrated collateral damage [61] – by persons addicted to it. Besides its nationwide pathogen effects [16], its worldwide deadliness marks humand history when a small crowd of opportunistic winners and appointed realpoliticians has allowed one of them (who, by the way, must've had an extremely unfavorable primal life [62]) to become a dictator [63].
third-type kin caregivers : relatives, friends or any other persons who actually help new parents in their effort to implement primal prevention by living stressless during their offspring's primal period (see [http://publichealthnewparadigms.wikia.com/wiki/THIRD-TYPE_KIN_CAREGIVERS_%3F ]). Note that this exceptional kin caregiving is much less demanding than the more conventional kin-caregiving we owe our chronically ill or very old relatives, often for many years “till death do us part”.