Environmental Rheumatology
Beauty and health: an intriguing liaison?
E. Grossi1
- Villa Santa Maria Foundation, Tavernerio, Italy. enzo.grossi@bracco.com
CER17453
2024 Vol.42, N°5
PI 1091, PF 1096
Environmental Rheumatology
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PMID: 38451159 [PubMed]
Received: 09/01/2024
Accepted : 16/02/2024
In Press: 06/03/2024
Published: 14/05/2024
Abstract
The exposure to different form of beauty coming from visual art, music, nature, architecture, improves mental health and exerts neurotrophic effects on different parts of the brain. This in turn improves physical health, prolongs life expectancy, and reduces the risk of serious degenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s and cancer. These beneficial actions would not be understandable and plausible if one did not accept the mind-body unity. The ‘hegemonic’ role of the brain in health and illness can be discerned, for example, in the effect of emotions on vital physiological parameters, in the relationships between stress and many medical-clinical pathologies, in the control exercised by the brain over the immune system reflecting also in the inhibition of tumour progression.
