The Ayurveda Approach to Diabetes

Ayurveda medicine is an alternative medicine all about balancing out the imbalance in our body that is causing the disease. The practitioners of this kind of medicine use complex herbal compounds, minerals, etc. They also use surgical techniques like kidney stone extractions and sutures. There has been a bit of research done that using this along with other alternative medicines and essential medicines can help treat many Non Communicable diseases from the common cold to cancer. This has been used around the Indian subcontinent for over 5000 years. According to the primary texts of Ayurveda, illness management is a 4 part procedure. This includes the cleansing, palliation (reduction of the intensity of the disease), rejuvenation, and mental nurturing/ spiritual healing. There are several ways to perform each part, not all of which are done at the same time or for all the patients. It depends on what kind of imbalance is occurring. The kind of procedures done to bring balance back to the body depends on the type of imbalance. A couple of examples of this concept is that detoxification of the body helps with disorders that are caused by toxins and dietary changes help with imbalances that cause metabolic disorders (Department 2012). In the case of metabolic diseases, both Ayurveda and traditional western medicine can work together.

Metabolism is an array of chemical reactions that help sustain life in organisms. The 3 purposes of metabolic pathways are to convert food into energy, convert food and fuel into molecules used in proteins, lipids, and nucleic acids, and some carbohydrates, and elimination of metabolic wastes. These pathways are very numerous with hundreds of reactants, products, and reactions that connect them. With as many pathways that happen within cells and organisms, they must be tightly regulated and controlled in the right way in order for our bodies to work as they should. If the pathways are not regulated correctly and kept in balance, then this creates an imbalance in the body, which we talked about concerning Ayurveda), which then brings disease to the body. There are several metabolic diseases that can occur because of the imbalance between the metabolic pathways. One of the main diseases that deals with metabolism is diabetes. 

Diabetes is one of the most prevalent metabolic diseases in the U.S. Diabetes is a disease where the body's glucose isn't under control, and over time this can cause very serious problems with your health. There are a couple of forms that diabetes takes, either Type 1 or Type 2. There are many differences between the two types but they both deal with a problem with producing insulin, a transporter molecule that allows the cells to take up glucose in the blood. The main cause of diabetes is that either the immune system attacks the cells that produce insulin because it thinks they are foreign cells (Type 1) or that your body starts to become resistant to the actions of insulin and the pancreas can’t produce enough insulin to overcome that resistance (Type 2). It’s one of the leading causes of deaths in the U.S. and one of the main causes of Diabetes (Type 2 in particular) is physical inactivity. Several causes of death are partially due to physical inactivity including heart disease and hypertension. Type 1 Diabetes is caused on the genetic level, but both can be helped with healthy eating and regular exercise.

Traditional western medicine has been the main treatment for diabetes. For a long time, not a lot could be done to treat diabetes other than injecting insulin into the body. There has been a lot of recent advances in western medicine for the treatment of diabetes.  Vanadate ions were recently found to have insulin-mimetic effects on the body. According to an article by Yoram Shechter, vanadate ions that were administered to hyperglycemic rats and the vanadate mimicked insulin stimulation of glucose uptake and metabolism. This led to normal levels of glucose in the blood. This has a lot of implications to help treat diabetes. It also restores the responsiveness of tissues to insulin and hepatic glycogen levels, as well as activating new synthesis of enzymes that help with carbohydrate metabolism. There has also been work on an artificial pancreas to help regulate blood glucose levels (Jaremko and Rorstad 440). This artificial pancreas would need to have an insulin pump, a blood glucose monitor, and a control system all coordinating with each other in order to be effective. If this were to become a reality, this could prevent or delay chronic complications of diabetes, a lower risk of hypoglycemia and hyperglycemia, and less inconvenience to the patient when they would rather have to perform daily glucose self-tests and insulin injections. 

According to Ayurveda, metabolic diseases, like diabetes, come from an imbalance in their Kapha dosha. The Kapha dosha  governs the physical structure of the body and several metabolic processes (Patel 2012).  The main treatments of Ayurveda entails personalized diets, herbal medicines, cleansing therapies, and lifestyle changes. This was presented in a case report published in 2019. A 40 year old man went to the AyurVAID Hospital in India for a cyst on his lower back, but was also found to have elevated blood sugar and had other symptoms pertaining to Type 2 Diabetes. He then was given several ayurvedic treatments including various massages, dietary changes, and herbal supplements. After four months of treatment, the patient’s clinical signs of diabetes had completely resolved (. His value of hemoglobin A1c, which is associated with glucose and a high amount is a sign of diabetes, was reduced dramatically over time. He had made several lifestyle changes that had reduced his symptoms  and  his quality of life was increased. Patients who had similar treatments also had improvements in their laboratory values and improvements in their personal lives. 

Works Cited

Department of Health & Human Services. "Ayurveda." 31 May 2012. Web. 08 Oct. 2020. https://www.betterhealth.vic.gov.au/health/conditionsandtreatments/ayurveda

Gordon, Allison, et al. “Use of Ayurveda in the Treatment of Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus.” Global Advances in Health and Medicine, Jan. 2019,

Jaremko, Jacob, and Otto Rorstad. "Advances toward the implantable artificial pancreas for treatment of diabetes." Diabetes care 21.3 (1998): 444-450.

Patel, Sheila. A Mind-Body Approach to Diabetes. 10 Jan. 2012, chopra.com/articles/a-mind-body-approach-to-diabetes. 

Shechter, Yoram. "Insulin-mimetic effects of vanadate: possible implications for future treatment of diabetes." Diabetes 39.1 (1990): 1-5.