News Release

What is and what is not a disease?

In search of 'non-disease' BMJ Volume 324, pp 883-5

Peer-Reviewed Publication

BMJ

What is and what is not a disease? The BMJ recently ran a vote on bmj.com to identify “non-diseases”. The aim was to prompt a debate on what is and what is not a disease and draw attention to the increasing tendency to classify people’s problems as diseases.

A top 20 list includes ageing, baldness, jet lag, cellulite, and anxiety about penis size. Some of these “non-diseases” already appear in official classifications of disease.

To have your condition labelled as a disease may bring considerable benefit, writes BMJ Editor, Richard Smith. Immediately you are likely to enjoy sympathy rather than blame, and you may be exempted from many commitments, including work. You may also feel that you have an explanation for your suffering.

But the diagnosis of a disease may also create problems. You may be denied insurance, a mortgage, and employment. Some diseases carry an inescapable stigma, which may create more problems than the disease itself. Worst of all, the diagnosis may lead you to regard yourself as forever flawed and incapable of “rising above” your problem.

We are not suggesting that the suffering of people with these “non-diseases” is not genuine, he says, but surely everything is to be gained and nothing lost by raising consciousness about the slipperiness of the concept of disease.

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