In a world where non-infectious diseases are the major disease burden, the key to understanding and improving health is in the mind. The mind is the mediator between the social environment and behaviours that affect health. Simply telling people to adopt a healthy lifestyle will not make a dent.
Advances will only come when we better understand how the environment of early childhood shapes how people interact with the world in which they grow up, live and work. In adult life, too, the mind is central to improving health. It is also the central processor that translates environmental threats into the body芒聙聶s stress reactions. Understanding how this works and, hence, what we can do about it will be a major advance over coming decades.
Brilliant Minds Forecast the Next 50 Years 芒聙鈥� find many more in our exclusive Special Report. You can also have your say on what the biggest breakthrough of the next 50 years will be, in our
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