"Disease" suggests that certain characteristics always come together. A rough sketch of some of the characteristics we expect in a disease might include:
1. Something caused by the sorts of thing you study in biology: proteins, bacteria, ions, viruses, genes.
2. Something involuntary and completely immune to the operations of free will
3. Something rare; the vast majority of people don't have it
4. Something unpleasant; when you have it, you want to get rid of it
5. Something discrete; a graph would show two widely separate populations, one with the disease and one without, and not a normal distribution.
6. Something commonly treated with science-y interventions like chemicals and radiation.
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People commonly debate whether social and mental conditions are real diseases. This masquerades as a medical question, but its implications are mainly social and ethical. We use the concept of disease to decide who gets sympathy, who gets blame, and who gets treatment.
Proposta:
We should blame and stigmatize people for conditions where blame and stigma are the most useful methods for curing or preventing the condition, and we should allow patients to seek treatment whenever it is available and effective.
