Curated Paper #1- Diabetes and Ayurveda

            

           Ayurveda is the concept of having balance in all aspect of a person’s life and if something is off balance it affects other aspects in one’s life. The balance between mind, body, and spirit are the three main things that this class has focused on. An example of this would be when a student is stressing too much about a test, his mind and spirit are out of balance. The imbalance of the mind and spirit then led to an imbalance of the body in the form of a decreased immune system (which often leads to sickness). 

            First impressions of Ayurveda medicine seemed fake to me. In my experience when people start mentioning spiritual-ness it has no scientific backing, and is a hit and miss in terms of success. Natural remedies recently have been taken extremely seriously. Although people have the right to believe what they want, they take these natural medicines much more seriously and look into them more than scientific based medicines. I think it’s a serious problem when people start trusting in bloggers more than scientists.

            I started looking deeper into this and trying to dig past the spiritual and religion like things and see if they had a deeper meaning.  There seemed to be an overarching theme of having a holistic approach to confronting illness and disease. Don’t look at just the illness, look at the person. Although there is a problem with the body, healthcare providers need to also care for the mental and emotional state of the patient. By nurturing many aspects of a person, they will be an overall healthier person. For example, when losing weight, a person should pay attention to many aspects of their life: how much they exercise, how they exercise, what they are eating, how much they are eating, how they are feeling in life, how they feel about the exercise/diets, do they feel they can continue this lifestyle, etc. Losing weight isn’t simply diet and exercise (although it is important), it’s about the person as a whole. People that hate (not just slightly dislike) the workout/diet they are on don’t lose weight, become on edge, and are not happy with their life.

One disease that the world is having a problem with is diabetes. In particular, America has an obesity problem which can lead to diabetes. According to the CDC over 39.8% of American are obese. That’s over a third of the U.S. population. Those that are overweight are more likely to have serious health concerns. The health problems most notable to me are heart disease and type 2 diabetes. Those with type-2 diabetes not only have to deal with the health problems and hassles associated with diabetes, but they also have to worry about the health concerns of being obese. Not all people that have type-2 diabetes are overweight/obese, however there is a large majority of diabetics are overweight/obese. This extremely concerning to me because there is approximately 23.4 million Americans diagnosed with a very preventable disease. The effects of diabetes range in type and severity. The effects that stood out to me were kidney, eye, and nerve diseases (which sometime results in amputation), reduced life expectancy, and cardiovascular problems. All these problems could have been resolved if a person were to have taken the necessary steps to become a healthier person. 

Not only does America have an obesity problem, America has a financial problem too. America currently has a debt of $21.5 trillion. This debt isn’t going away easily or anytime soon.  Each year the average cost to those with diabetes nationally is $327 billion. Not all of this is paid by the government through Medicare and other government agencies, but a large portion of it is. This number is also only going to increase due to the rise of obesity (and with that diabetes). This is a huge cost to taxpayers. Not only are people having to take care of their family, but they also have to pay for those with diabetes. If we were to reduce the amount of people getting diabetes we could lower the medical costs per year. Even though this alone won’t solve our debt crisis, every bit helps.

One thing that papers and studies seem to emphasize is how preventable type-2 diabetes is. Diet and exercise are key to maintaining a healthy life and avoiding diabetes. This concept ties back to Ayurveda. By dieting and exercising the body is in balance with itself and in return the body functions properly. When dieting and exercising does not occur, there is an imbalance in the body. The body naturally tries to correct this imbalance, but if it is being overwhelmed it starts to fail. In terms of diabetes, when the body isn’t healthy beta-cells in the pancreas start to die. Because there are fewer cells to help with controlling blood glucose levels, the remaining cells have to work harder to try to maintain balance. The hard-working cells eventually tire out and die. If we were to have balance in the beginning then beta-cells wouldn’t die and the body could continue with proper functioning.