Ayurveda seems to be a very old, traditional form of medicine that uses the body, mind, and spirit to keep the body in its natural, orderly state. From what I have read, its philosophy is that the natural state of things is order, and health is order. In the same way, disease is disorder, and there are many things that affect the order or health of your body. Not just physical things, but relationships, emotions, diet, and things of that nature are all interrelated and play a part in your overall health. This is the main philosophy of Ayurveda as I understand it. Apparently, it has been around for over 5,000 years, mostly passed down by word of mouth, from one person to another, and has been maintained all this time. Many health practices now considered to be homeopathic in the United States have roots in Ayurveda, including oils, yoga, and massage techniques used to help the body and the mind together. Not only is it individual, but according to traditional Ayurveda practice, everything in the universe is connected in this way and the order, or health, can exist between people and populations, and can be either built up or destroyed by practices as have been outlined. The population and individual work together, just as the body and the mind work together.
Ayurveda also has to do with how the cell processes in the body and how Ayurveda can aid the regeneration of tissues. The balance between the different parts of the cell process and how they work together is very much a part of Ayurveda and is like the way that the body and mind work together in the traditional sense of Ayurveda. While doing some research on diabetes and metabolism, it was cool to see how the different organ systems in the body work together in Ayurveda. Diabetes in particular has the lymphatic, immune, and endocrine systems all working together, and it is one of the reasons that Ayurveda is thrown off with diabetes, because the different systems don’t communicate as much as they should and actually attack each other.
As I am beginning to research diabetes, one of the first things that struck me as odd was that type 2 diabetes is more concordant in identical twins than type 1 is, which surprised me. I have some family members with diabetes, both type 1 and type 2, and one of my sister-in-law’s has type 1 diabetes. She and my brother have identical twin daughters who aren’t yet quite old enough to know whether or not they will have diabetes as well. It surprises me that they have a higher chance of both having type 2 diabetes than type 1, though that statistic may be different since their mother has type 1 diabetes. It just strikes me as odd, since type 1 diabetes is usually something you are born with and type 2 is something that comes later in life, usually due to lifestyle and eating habits. I also didn’t know that type 1 diabetes is so rare compared to type 2 diabetes. I wonder how rare the other, less well-known types of diabetes are compared to even just type 1.
I also think it is interesting that diabetes and type 1 in specific are tied to the immune system, since diabetes is usually thought of as more of an issue with blood sugar and glucose by the average person. I think this just goes to show how much must go right for the body to function correctly. Ayurveda is so important for the body in all functions, all the different things that can go wrong if the body and mind are not in harmony. When I think of diabetes, I think of mostly insulin and glucose and their role in regulating the body’s blood sugar level. I am a little ashamed to admit that though my dad has type 2 diabetes, and my sister-in-law has type 1 diabetes, among other relatives with it as well, that I don’t actually know more about the disease itself. I also didn’t know that you could actually get diabetes from a virus or an infection. I was curious about this and looked it up, apparently there are several different viruses that can trigger the onset of type 1 diabetes, with the most common type being enteroviruses. It was even shown in Finland that autoantibody appearance paralleled the enterovirus infection pattern in children (Filippi and Herrath 2008).
I know such a term as the “diabetes pandemic” has been mentioned before, and while I do think it is probably different due to its incommunicable nature, the graphics of the self-reported obesity among U.S. adults change from 2011 to 2018 is staggering, and makes the pandemic distinction reasonable, with it at least being an epidemic in the United States. I know the graphics are just for obesity, but considering obesity plays such a huge role in many cases of type 2 diabetes, which, as I mentioned before, is by far the most common type of diabetes. I wonder how much obesity plays a factor in type 2 diabetes, if at all. I know it is primarily an issue with the immune system, but it can’t help. Obesity on its own is enough of an issue but dealing with diabetes on top of that can be very difficult for many people, despite it being easy to manage by diet, exercise, and medication. I think diabetes has a bad reputation because people think it is worse than it is, because they only hear about the worst cases, but it is manageable if you know how what to do. That is one reason that diabetes education is so important for people that are new to diabetes. I had a roommate once that was recently diagnosed with diabetes and he wasn’t properly educated about how to take care of himself and how to change his diet, and we had to actually force feed him peanut butter at night because his blood sugar was so low that he was heading into a diabetic coma.
I’ve always thought it interesting that people with diabetes have issues with their feet and other extremities. On the graphic in the PowerPoint, it says that “feet wounds are likely to heal slowly”, which hits close to home for me, since my dad has type 2 diabetes, and he had an issue with his foot that started about a year ago, I think it was an abscess of some kind. Normally it would heal in a couple of months, but this took much longer, it just barely finally healed completely this month for the first time in a year. I never really thought that it was his diabetes that could be contributing, since he takes such good care of it and has almost stopped taking insulin completely in the last year and a half due to a diet change. Maybe despite that, the narrowing of his blood vessels in his foot over time caused this small issue to be prolonged much longer than it needed to. Even despite how well he takes care of his diabetes, it is still a very scary disease and that a lot can go wrong just due to the nature of the disease. This is what makes it even more scary for those that don’t know how to take care of it, Ayurveda can be thrown off and a lot can go wrong.
I work in a pharmacy as a pharmacy technician, and one of the most frustrating things about it is how much people must pay for their insulin. Usually, they have to pay really high amounts for the first couple months, before their deductible is met, and then it is a lower cost for a lot of the year. However, this is not true for everyone, and even if it was, it’s still very wrong to me that people with diabetes have to pay so much money for a life-saving drug, one that many of them literally cannot live without. I know it is a hotly debated issue in the United States right now, but insulin prices are too high in my opinion, and they need to be made more affordable. I know it is easier said than done, but there can be improvements made. I like how the slides point out that preventing diabetes is a better strategy to fighting it, and I agree, but those with diabetes shouldn’t be punished for having the disease, they need the medication to live, they shouldn’t have to pay so much for it. Many people that are at risk for diabetes or have diabetes are not able to afford the medication. This makes it even more difficult for those with diabetes that aren’t properly educated to be able to properly treat it if they also can’t afford it.
In conjunction with my last paragraph, I thought it was interesting that the article focused mainly on the cost of diabetes to the economy, or to the nation, rather than to the individual, which is primarily what I discussed. It is no surprise that such a large portion of the national health care budget is spent on diabetes and other illnesses associated with it. Some of the numbers they brought up are actually really staggering, I had no idea that even almost ten years ago in 2012 that the cost of diagnosed diabetes was $245 billion, $176 billion of which was spent directly on medical costs. I also thought it interesting that a person with diabetes spends about 2.3 times as much on health-related issues than they would without diabetes. This goes back to what I was discussing before about the outrageous cost of insulin and other diabetic supplies and medicine.
Microbiome: This is a really cool, new topic in science from the last 25 years or so. I took a microbiology class a few years ago and we actually did the feces sample test that it mentions in the first point about the microbiome. I don’t exactly remember what my results were, but I remember that it was cool to see the differences in the gut microbiomes of the different students in the class. The microbiome is such an interesting and unique idea, that all of these microorganisms living inside your body make up a large part of how your body functions, its just fascinating.
I remember one point that was made in the microbiology class that I took that talked heavily about the microbiome, was the fact that those people that are born vaginally vs those that are born by cesarian section have vastly different microbiomes, and sometimes those that are born via c-section are at more risk for some diseases. I’m not sure how much of a factor it plays, but it makes sense that those children that are not born vaginally may not get the proper microbiome needed from their mother, since much of a female microbiome lives in the vagina, as well as in the gut and gastrointestinal tract. Point number 7 also mentions that children also develop their microbiome through breastfeeding, so those children that are formula fed instead of breastmilk fed may have a disadvantage as well.
In the eighth point it mentions that use of antibiotics at a young age could actually affect the microbiome to the point that it promotes obesity and autoimmune diseases. I mentioned before that I work at a pharmacy, and I know that a lot of the time, when people are given antibiotics, they will take a probiotic with it to promote healthy bacterial growth, so that the antibiotic only fights against the harmful bacteria and doesn’t collaterally kill the good bacteria in your gut as well. This is something that could possibly combat this issue in young children. I also think it is interesting that they mention how there are E. coli strains in the microbiota, but even when this article was written, and probably even now, they still don’t really know which are the good bacteria and which are the harmful ones. There still needs to be a lot of research done on this topic.
One thing I never considered is that having pets, and specifically having dogs as a young child, can decrease the risk of allergies, as well as decrease the risk of respiratory diseases. I grew up with dogs in the house, and I have little to no allergies. I usually do not get seasonal allergies, and the only thing that I know of that I am allergic to is horses, which would make sense since I spent little to no time around horses as a young person. Once I got a little bit older, I rode horses very infrequently and it wasn’t until I was about 16 that I realized that I was actually allergic. I think that having dogs in the house possible reduced my risk of allergies. I usually do not get sick very often, and when I do it is pretty mild. This is especially true for respiratory illnesses such as the cold or types of influenza. I even had COVID-19 this last year but it did not severely affect me. Ayurveda is also possibly a factor in the fact that someone that grows up around dogs or near certain animals have some part of their mental psyche that affects their physical body and what they are and aren’t allergic to as adults. I know that some studies have shown that an early introduction to certain foods like peanuts can lower or raise the likelihood of having an allergy to that food.
There are lots of interesting things about the microbiota I have never thought about before in this article. Both the fact that you can transplant part of the microbiome to another person and that it can help treat disease, and the fact that the transplant could possibly help people with diabetes due to an increase in insulin sensitivity, is pretty crazy. This isn’t something you would think possible in traditional medicine, at least I wouldn’t. I think it is pretty cool that they have figured out how to do this, even if they don’t totally know what the microorganisms are that are helping these improvements specifically. I think that will likely take many more years and lots of research to figure that out.
I think the logic that said that a higher diversity of gut microbiome is better than a lower diversity makes a lot of sense. The more microbiota you have the higher chance you have of those microbiotas helping your body to fight harmful bacteria. Now, I guess it means that you also have a higher chance of those bacteria being harmful, but generally all of the microorganisms in your gut and microbiome are there for your good. I think overall this article was cool to read to know how much future research and discoveries there will be on this subject, it could be a huge boost to medicine and health research.
Much of what I discussed earlier is brought up again in the next slides, so I won’t belabor the point and restate things, but I do think it is interesting to think of areas of the body as being “sterile” when we as humans are literally living organisms with many other living organisms inside of us. It is a strange thought, but I suppose some areas are more sterile than others, and others need to be less sterile than others, such as the gut, to perform correctly. I think coevolution is another really interesting point. It is strange to me to think about the fact that not only have humans been evolving for millions of years, but that microorganisms have been living inside of us and as a part of us for just as long, and of almost all animal organisms, and that they have been coevolving along with us the entire time.
The idea presented in the paper about how the gut microbiota could possibly influence behavior, is such a strange but cool concept to think about. Normally, I would not think of those two areas of the body as communicating beyond simple neural response signals sent back and forth, as is the case with the brain and the rest of the body. However, thinking about the possibility that the gut is partially responsible for mental health and behavioral issues such as anxiety or depression is a pretty crazy thought. I would say mental health is one of the aspects of health that we know very little about comparatively, but this relationship is fascinating. It really takes it all back to the idea of Ayurveda, and the fact that the body and mind are constantly in communication and that they both are capable of influencing each other and are part of the same system. This is where Ayurveda really comes to the forefront of this discussion, to me.
Cancer: I never quite thought about the microbiome influencing whether or not someone develops cancer or cancerous cells or not, but it certainly makes sense, especially for gastrointestinal cancers. I didn’t really consider the possibility of it affecting the immune systema and other areas of the body in such a way as to either promote cancer, or just not contribute to fighting it. I think genetics probably plays a large role in whether someone’s microbiome helps or hurts their chances of developing cancer, but the research likely also shows that it is largely due to diet and environmental factors as well. Not only this, but it is also very interesting that the microbiome could hypothetically be used.
To conclude, Ayurveda is very important in metabolism as a whole and for diabetes, microbiome, and cancer prevention. diabetes is a flaw in an organ system that involves many different systems in the body, throwing off Ayurveda. The microbiome is Ayurveda on a micro level, with many different microorganisms working together to create a newly discovered organ system that affects all parts of the body in ways that we don’t fully understand yet. It can even help in cancer prevention and if it is thrown off, can be the cause for cancer in some cases.
