An Ayurvedic Approach to Diabetes and Illness

    The study of medicine can be dated back to around 2600 BC, with it first being mentioned in different texts recovered from the Old Kingdom of Ancient Egypt, and has since then undergone many facelifts as it adapts and changes with the world around it and the knowledge humans have gained throughout time. The medicinal practices created thousands of years ago may not look exactly like medicine does today, but many ideologies from long ago have remained a staple in different cultures and can still be found in modern-day medicine. One of these medicinal practices was a natural medicinal system developed in India over 3,000 years ago known as Ayurveda; it is the idea that perfect health is defined as a balance between body, mind, spirit, and social wellbeing. It is thought that one can only truly be healthy when each of these categories is perfectly balanced with one another, as an imbalance in these causes major disruption within the body, leading to poor health and disease. Though seemingly archaic given that it was developed thousands of years ago, some modern medicine seeks to incorporate Ayurveda into their practices to look further into what could be causing an illness instead of limiting it to strictly physiological disease and disfunction—our bodies are in constant interaction with itself and the world around us, so it is justifiable to look at how balanced the body is with the mind, spirit, and environment and use all of it to come to a conclusion about what could be causing the ailment. The body is not a singular entity but relies on the world around us to keep it functioning just as much as it relies on its own processes to stay functioning. Ayurveda is not widely accepted in every modern medical clinic but is on the rise in modern countries as they seek to find less pervasive and more personalized medical care. Despite the sometimes intolerance to this ideology, Ayurveda is actually incredibly similar to another topic that is taught in nearly every Biology class available: homeostasis. Homeostasis is a state of steady equilibrium between interdependent elements that keep something properly functioning, which is the same ideology behind Ayurveda, just on a smaller scale. The two, in my opinion, go hand in hand—one smaller in scale and the other larger in scale—because they argue the same point, just on different planes. Ayurveda is to health what homeostasis is to the body, and homeostasis is just one version of Ayurveda. 

Homeostasis within the body is significantly important to one’s health and wellness but is also necessary for metabolism to take place. Metabolism is a very complex and systematic process that is composed of every individual chemical reaction that takes place within the body—it is the life-sustaining chemical reactions that are carried out to keep the body functioning properly. Collectively, the chemical reactions are known as metabolic pathways, which are tightly regulated, direct in the course, and precise in nature to properly maintain the flow of the metabolites that they produce. Metabolic pathways are not only hard-working, but resilient when predictable changes within the body occur, though should the environment be unpredictable and homeostasis is off-kilter, the metabolic pathway cannot perform as it needs to which leads to illness, disease, and complications within the body. There is a multitude of diseases that can occur from an improperly functioning metabolic pathway, though one of the most common and pervasive diseases resulting from this is known as diabetes. 

Diabetes is a classic case of metabolic homeostatic imbalance occurring when the body loses control over glucose levels through the inability to make enough insulin or the inability to properly use insulin leading to an imbalance of insulin and glucagon in the body. This imbalance leads to a multitude of issues within the body on both the microscopic and macroscopic scales, all of which are connected to one another in some way. Insulin helps carry sugar from the bloodstream into the cells, which then convert the sugar into energy, fueling our bodily functions. When the hormone insulin is diminished or unable to be properly used, there is a build-up of glucose in the blood which increases blood glucose levels to a risky amount which leads to other complications—blindness, kidney disease, nerve damage, heart attacks, and even strokes. All of these complications are caused by an imbalance of insulin and glucagon which is an imbalance in metabolic homeostasis. The consequences of just one hormone being out of balance are severe and numerous because of how interconnected the body is, and that interconnectedness maintains itself throughout every aspect of our lives; the body is just as connected with itself as it is with our thought processes, the environments we live in, and the way we interact with everything around us. Diabetes may be an internal imbalance, but the way we live externally does not only affect how diabetes presents itself in a person, but also the likelihood of getting the disease as well.

A multitude of studies has linked diabetes to poor eating habits, exercise regimes, and the way we choose to use our bodies. America is notorious for its extra-large and sugary food portions, its love of toxins and drugs, and its all-too-common laziness that many other countries love to point out; sure none of these are really bodily functions, but believe it or not, they are causes of diabetes in Americans. The food you choose to consume, the amount of exercise you commit yourself to, and even the income level of the population you grow up with are just a few factors that affect the likelihood of you getting this disease. Recent studies have shown that diabetes is more prevalent in low-income populations; this could have a lot of reasons attached to it, but the ones I found to be the most interesting are that of repetitive unhealthy behaviors and stress linked to poorer populations. Unhealthy food typically lasts longer in storage, is easier to buy in bulk, and more often cheaper than healthier alternatives; when a family is struggling financially, they will buy cheaper foods that will stretch further, and I can promise you that fresh produce and protein are not the cheaper options. This leads to unhealthy eating behaviors because it is not only what the family can afford, but it is what the family gets accustomed to. When people are struggling just to put food on the table, it can lead to high amounts of stress. These two factors put together are a deadly combination and one that can lead to an increased likelihood of developing diabetes. This example just goes to show that it is more than just your body that plays a part in your health, but also the environment around you and the way your mind is working, which just further supports the idea of Ayurveda and the interconnectedness one has with their mind, body, spirit, and environment. When an environment is unstable and when someone is struggling with their mental health, it creates a deadly cocktail that opens a person up to physical health issues that can be prevented not with medicine or treatment, but by realigning your life in a healthy way and working through the detrimental outside forces that are a cause of the illness at hand. 

Ayurveda is a very fascinating ideology, it does not seek to treat an illness but instead seeks to encourage lifestyle interventions, natural therapies, and overall health improvement by regaining balance between the mind, body, and environment. The goal is to create and live a healthy life before illness can take hold of one’s life, further spiraling one’s balance further out of control. It is not just one’s physical health that can affect their body’s ability to function properly, but everything it comes into contact with as well. One of the best ways I have found to describe how Ayurveda works is by analogizing it to Newton’s third law: for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. For example, if you jump, your legs apply a force to the ground, and the ground applies an equal and opposite reacting force that propels you into the air; if you have unhealthy energy surrounding you and your body, your body will, in turn, become unhealthy and emit poor energy back. When you give a sponge dirty dishwater to clean up, it will drain dirty dishwater back when it is rung out; the body is the same in terms of Ayurveda. The more stressed you are, the more unhealthy food you eat, the more you tell yourself you aren’t good enough, and the more negative energy you give your body, the more negative energy it will give out in illness and disease. Diabetes is just one example of disruption of the balance in the body, but it is all-encompassing in showing the relationships between our body and the world around us. By putting more energy and focus into the relationships between our mind, body, spirit, and environment, we will be able to find the discrepancies in our lives causing the problems and find solutions to them before they affect our health to the point of disease, illness, and sometimes, death. After all, you can try to treat a disease with every medicine under the sun, but if you refuse to find the cause of the disease, you will be stuck in a never-ending loop of wrong medications, increasing numbers of problems, and a world of pain and discomfort.

Sources:

Ayurveda. Johns Hopkins Medicine. (2019, December 2). Retrieved June 21, 2022, from https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/health/wellness-and-prevention/ayurveda 

Gaskin, D. J., Thorpe, R. J., McGinty, E. E., Bower, K., Rohde, C., Young, J. H., LaVeist, T. A., & Dubay, L. (2014, November). Disparities in diabetes: The nexus of race, poverty, and place. American journal of public health. Retrieved June 20, 2022, from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4021012/ 

Endocrine Society. (2022, March 31). Diabetes and endocrine function. Endocrine Society. Retrieved June 20, 2022, from https://www.endocrine.org/patient-engagement/endocrine-library/diabetes-and-endocrine-function 

Forbetterweb.com. (n.d.). Ayurveda & the concept of disease. Ayurveda - The Concept of Disease - AskDabur. Retrieved June 21, 2022, from https://www.dabur.com/daburarogya/ayurveda/ayurveda-aur-hum/ayurveda-and-the-concept-of-disease.aspx 

Wilson, D. F., & Matschinsky, F. M. (1AD, January 1). Metabolic homeostasis in life as we know it: Its origin and thermodynamic basis. Frontiers. Retrieved June 2, 2022, from https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fphys.2021.658997/full