Chaos Theory and Its Impact on “Health - Disease Concept”

The theory of chaos, which deals with nonlinear complex dynamic systems characterized by fractal-based structure, has affected almost every fi eld of science in the last 20 years. Life sciences are one of the most applicable areas for chaos theory because of the complexity of biological systems. In this paper, after brief description of nonlinear and complex systems of living and non-living environment, the basic principles of the theory are discussed more detailed. It is widely accepted that healthy systems maintain complexity in lifetime and are chaotic. Loss of complexity or loss of chaos leads to disease. Many classical opinions about health and disease become arguable after chaos theory. Learning chaos theory is crucial, since it may open new horizons to understand the valid mechanism underlying health behavior and diseases, and deliver more appropriate therapy to the patients.