Curated Paper 1

Is Ayurveda real or bogus?

Ayurvedic medicine is a holistic healing system that originated around three thousand years ago in India. The topic centralizes the idea that body, mind and spirit must be kept in constant balance for optimal health and longevity. Interestingly, different sources have different definitions of the work Ayurveda, with one stating it is “knowledge of life and longevity”, and another stating it as “combine[ing] the Sanskrit words ayur (life) and veda (science or knowledge)”. These definitions are close to one another with the exception of the longevity part in the first definition possibly stemming from the science part in the second definition. Ayurvedic medicine is considered pseudoscience by today’s terms, but I think there may be some merit to the idea that balance between different levels of consciousness is definitely needed to have a good lease on life. As I have aged, the need for me to have mindfulness has gotten greater and greater. I find myself needing meditation, or small moments of reflection to allow myself to live a less stress heavy life. In my studies of psychology, I have learned that high levels of cortisol and other negative neurotransmitters can exacerbate, or even cause, physical ailments. By keeping balance between mind, body, and spirit we keep ourselves in a happier state, and by extension a healthier state.

General Chemistry has a different way of talking about balance, in that of “entropy”. Entropy is chaos or disorder, and it is what everything in the universe is slowly heading towards. Our bodies naturally decay over time because our bodies are imperfect and we help them in becoming imperfect with our bad habits. The more we throw off the balance, the quicker our bodies head towards chaos. This may be a little more philosophical than is actually true for the world, but Ayurveda does take into account “spirit” which can be tied to philosophy in many ways.

To determine how realistic Ayurveda is, let’s discuss a few different topics that can be used as archetypes to embody the topic. A current hot topic in scientific medicine is finding correlation between the human gut microbiome, and colorectal cancer. A multitude of factors affect the gut microbiome of a human, ranging from environmental factors to genetic factors that predispose a person to having certain percentages of each microorganism within the person. In tests done on mice, the genotype of the host has a definite effect on the microbiome with different gene loci in humans effecting their gut, which in turn effects the microorganisms. This also shows that there can be a lot of diversity in each individual’s gut microbiome, but does give us some leads into understanding why some people are more susceptible to colorectal cancers than others. The genetics factors effecting the microbiome, and also relating to cancer, are partially controlled by both gender and to nationality of the person. All of these factors may seem abstract, and unrelated, but ultimately diseases like colorectal cancer are caused by the sum of their parts. Genetics of a person may dispose them to a higher chance of cancer, but eating incorrectly based on their culture may heighten that chance.

Diabetes is another disease that can be analyzed using the lens of Ayurveda. Diabetes is one of the most pressing diseases effecting our country at the moment. The prevalence of the disease is shocking, with one in ten people suffering from effects of the disease in one form or another. It is obvious that there is a delicate balance holding our blood glucose levels right where they need to be. Insulin, amylin, incretins, glucagon, cortisol, epinephrine, and growth hormone all play an important part in keeping equilibrium of blood glucose. This balance can be easily upset, and our bodies do their best to compensate, but over long periods of time, sustain irreparable damage. Whether it is a disease that is caused by heredity, or a disease caused by bad habits, diabetes causes much suffering to those who have it, and the families around them. Interestingly, this further throws things out of balance, where if people are overly stressed (possibly by watching a family member suffer) can cause emotional damage.

Other aspects effecting how bad someone’s diabetes is are: their behavior, home life, education, tax bracket, activity level, and genetics. Being in poverty can cause a person who becomes obese, stay obese, and eventually develop diabetes as a combination of inactivity, and poor diet. Furthermore it is expensive for both the patient to find help, and the government to help care for these people. In volunteering at Family Healthcare here in Cedar City, I have seen many patients, and unfortunately I have seen many complications of people who are obese, and/or are diabetic. So many of these patients have chronic fatigue, headaches, GI problems, and chronic pain. It makes me sad to watch these people suffer, and it makes me a little angry that something so simple (diet and exercise) can fix all their problems, but many of them blatantly refuse to do so. The path to healthy living is not all down to biology, but psychology making a person want to change that cures these ailments.

Both of these examples show that there is much more going on to create a disease than simply one factor. Often to truly get out of balance, there are many things occurring in succession that eventually cause a diseased state. From an Ayurvedic perspective, this means that the longer one is out of balance, the more likely they are to enter a diseased state.

I myself find myself out of balance quite often. I sleep too little, work too much, and eat incorrectly. This often puts me in a bad mood and causes spikes in anxiety and occasionally depression. Even this class made me feel off balance when we first began.The foreign nature of having a Biology course without rather regimented scheduling, assignments, and expectations actually paralyzed me in getting started with writing. My classmates and I talked about this feeling of fear towards the different style class, and I couldn’t help but laugh at the situation we found ourselves in. Here we are, high-and-mighty science students who can handle Organic Chemistry, Cell and Molecular Science, Physics, high-level mathematics, etc. but we cannot handle being given the freedom to just have curiosity. I suppose that is exactly the reason why this class is so loose in structure. It is to balance us away from such strict, formulaic lives and force us into the unknown. 

Ultimately I am starting to lean towards the idea that Ayurveda is a good way of understanding the world. Balance is very much something that every living and non-living thing in our universe uphold to create what we all know and love. Without the precise positioning of the Earth's distance from the sun, we would all either burn or freeze. Without the perfect symphony of proteins coming together with DNA and RNA to do transcription and translation, we couldn't extract energy from food and would quickly perish. And without balance in our lives, between properly caring for our bodies, caring for our psyche, and feeling some type of purpose, we would never find what we all ultimately want: happiness.