Ayurveda and Metabolism

 Ayurveda and Metabolism

Ayurveda is the balance between body and well-being. Using this method is to create a world of medicine that is considered to be preventative. There are many different ways to prevent the disease from getting worse within the person. This idea also provides a healthy lifestyle from preventing the disease from recurring. This idea, it can be used in a way to improve someone’s lifestyle but also help change it to prevent a disease that could occur from the current lifestyle. I think of obesity when it comes to this. When a person is obese, in western medicine they are told to change their diet and excise more often. Although the Ayurveda way of thinking is to ingest certain types of plants that will help lose body fat, it will also help change the lifestyle of the person. 

Ayurveda is said to be known as one of the oldest healing sciences that has stuck around to today. This type of medicine, it states that disease is due to an imbalance or the stress of the person’s consciousness. This means that there is usually something more going on with the person than what is being manifested as the disease. This is interesting because I have seen many doctors about my migraines and stomach problems and none of them are able to find anything wrong with me even though my body is out of homeostasis. This goes right into Ayurveda being a holistic approach to medicine. The holistic approach is looking at the whole person and what is happening within their bodies and not just attacking the portion in which the disease is manifested. I like this because I believe that modern or western medicine is missing this aspect. Many medical professionals just look at the part of your body that is “hurt” instead of searching for a correlation or cause to that disease. 

When searching a google scholar article, it discussed the different herbs that are used within the idea of Ayurveda. This got me thinking and compared to what I have been exposed to in my life, which would be essential oils (I know that is not the same thing, but kind of). Essential oils are used not by medical professionals and can be used for many different things. The herbs that they were discussing in the paper were synthetic drugs that are from plants. The list that they had was interesting because it talked about what each plant was used for. It surprised me that there are so many different plants that can help with many different diseases. Later this article it discusses that the creation of the herbal drug goes through testing to determine the portion of the plants that can be used in medicine. Which is not so different from the medicine that we use in western medicine. Western medicine just allows for more to be made synthetically through chemicals. 

Within the world of Ayurveda, metabolism is discussed in terms of energy. There are specific energies within our bodies that allow for the body to work together. Metabolic pathways are sets of chemical reactions that occur within a specific cell. These pathways play very specific roles within a living system. The two major metabolic pathways are catabolic and anabolic. These are either building or breaking down nutrients within the organism. Anabolic is building and catabolic is breaking down. The major metabolic pathway is glycolysis. This is the oxidation of glucose to produce ATP. Meaning the organism places glucose in to produce energy. There are many different pathways that work within an organism, some include Krebs Cycle, Phosphorylation, and the urea cycle. Although each of these cycles does something different, they all work towards the same purpose, to create energy. All of these pathways work together to produce something for the next pathway, therefore it is a chain reaction in our bodies. Although, when there is an imbalance in the energies and chemicals, it can lead to diseases. 

Diabetes is when the body loses control over glucose levels. There are many different types of diabetes that affect the body in many different ways. In my personal experience, I have known people of each kind and they are all completely different and react to different things. Such as my neighbor, was a type 1 diabetic but did not take care of his body as he should have. When I was growing up he found himself in many diabetic comas. His kids would run over to our house and tell my mom that their dad was not breathing or moving. We would run over as quickly as we could to assess and see what needed to happen. Most of the time he was very low in sugar and could not get back up. Therefore, we had to get him some sugar (usually a Capri sun). This allowed for his body to reset and work as normal. This shows how quickly something can change within the body when it is not functioning properly. Another story is about my grandpa, he got diagnosed with type 2 diabetes, because he was overweight. He has since taken charge of his life and gotten things under control to the point where he doesn’t really have to think about what he eats.

The “Beta cells'' within the pancreas are endocrine cells that synthesize, store and release insulin. In diabetes, different factors cause the B cells in the pancreas to be destroyed which does not allow insulin to leave the pancreas. This is normally discussed in a way that the pancreas is not working properly to produce insulin. The main reason why diabetes occurs in patients with defective B cells is that there is excess glucose in the body and insulin is not present in the body to bind to the receptors which then leads to hyperglycemia. The B cells are the main determinant between type 1 and type 2 diabetes. In type 1, the cells are destroyed and no longer in the pancreas, but in type 2, the cells are just dysfunctional and are no longer able to work because of many factors.

Type two diabetes is always talked about as the disease of obesity. Type two diabetes is when the body has a hard time regulating glucose in the body. Molecularly, this is caused because the receptors in the pancreas are damaged and are not binding to insulin. This causes the channels to remain closed and the glucose to stay in the blood instead of entering the organs. This means that there is excess glucose in the bloodstream that cannot enter any organs for breakdown and usage. The difference between type 1 and type 2 is either insulin is not being produced correctly or the insulin is not being received correctly. Something that we always associate with type two diabetes is that the person is not getting enough exercise. Though exercise is traditionally associated with type 2 diabetes, it also affects type 1 diabetics. Only strenuous exercise can affect type one diabetics. This is the opposite of type 2 because they need to exercise because they have an excess of triglycerides in their bodies. Type 1 diabetics are encouraged to exercise daily, but are warned that strenuous workouts can cause their blood sugar to drop quickly. 

Most cases of diabetes are unavoidable, mainly type 1 diabetes. Many people are diagnosed with type 1 diabetes each year and none of them ask for this disease. There are many things that come with diabetes, one of those being insulin which needs to be inserted into the body. The average cost per person each year with diabetes is about $16,752 per year. These are for things such as hospital visits, medications, and other programs to help those with diabetes. The economic cost, due to inflation from 2012-2017, has increased by 26%. The reason for high costs is due to insulin. This medicine is fairly cheap to make but is being sold for outrageous prices. Drug companies are able to do this because the population who buys this drug is vulnerable and needs it to survive. 

Many courses of treatment are being discussed today, such as gene therapy or different pills that can suppress the immune system, but those all come with different problems which would also have to be treated. Different treatment methods, it got me thinking about feedback loops and how the body connects in certain ways. If we were to give a patient something to suppress the immune system through cytokines, we would have to work on the rest of the immune system so it doesn’t completely shut down. These were all great ideas but have an opposite and equal reaction to them, I wanted to do some more research on possible treatments. Currently, there is talk about using an artificial pancreas as a transplant for someone who has diabetes. Another thing being researched is different agents besides insulin that can be used to be injected into the body, although I found that most of these medicines are only being used to treat type 2 diabetes. I think that it would be interesting if there was a way to destroy the beta cells that are no longer working and reactivate the other B cells in the pancreas that were not destroyed. Although, from previous research, the best treatment is to use an insulin pump to counteract the glucose in the body. 

Diabetes is not talked about as a deadly disease but in the year 2020, diabetes was the 8th leading cause of death in the United States with 102,188 deaths. Patients with diabetes are not necessarily dying from diabetes itself but from complications that occur from the disease. These are things such as cardiovascular complications or cancer. Although, there are some people who die from diabetes itself. This is because these people are not particularly great at maintaining their diabetes, just like the neighbor that I had mentioned earlier. Now, I don’t have diabetes so I am not one to really talk about the management of diabetes and how hard it can be, but I believe there are some actions that can be taken to help these people who are newly diagnosed with diabetes. At the University of Utah, when someone is diagnosed with diabetes, they offer classes on how to do certain things related to diabetes. I think it would be interesting for patients with diabetes to be sent things in the mail/email to help further their education on the disease and what can be done to manage it to keep them out of the hospital. I also think there should be some sort of education on diabetes when someone goes to the hospital with hyperglycemia. 

Diabetes is a pancreatic disease, but just like every other disease that affects anything in the body, it will have other effects due to homeostasis. If diabetes is not being taken care of properly, then there are many complications that could happen within the body. One is that there can be damage to the nerves. Which can cause pain and tingling sensations. This is interesting because when you think of the pancreas, you think of insulin and other organs. Although, everything in the body is connected. If something is not working correctly, then it will completely affect something else in the body, mainly the nervous system. The nervous system controls all of the body even if we do not explicitly say it or study it that way. Since in diabetes, the inulin production and receptors are affected, the rest of the body can be affected if not treated properly. 

Diabetes is a disease within the body that causes imbalance. In type 1 diabetes, insulin is not produced correctly and cannot be used within the body. This allows for excess glucose to build up in the body which can cause a lot of complications. In type 2 diabetes, there is a problem with the receptors that don’t allow for the binding of insulin which can’t let glucose into organs to be broken down. These are both things that cause problems within the body. If we think back on how this relates to the concept of Ayurveda, we can discuss how to prevent the body from getting this way. In type 1 diabetes, it is hard to use preventative measures for this disease. Although, we are able to treat the symptoms of each of these diseases. For type 1 diabetes, you are encouraged to follow a strict diet with the correct insulin dosage. You should also be regularly taking the blood glucose levels of the person with the disease. In type 2 diabetes, there are some preventative measures that can be taken. Things such as a healthy diet and exercising can keep weight off which in turn can help the insulin receptors not be damaged. These are things that can be done regularly before you get diagnosed with diabetes. Although, there is a discussion that there are some things that can help with the management of type 1 diabetes. These things include regular doctor visits with regular testing to make sure that all of your levels are in check. This way if your body develops type 1 diabetes, it can be caught early and hopefully help with the symptoms better and prevent diabetic ketoacidosis. There are also some things that are showing effectiveness, such as testing to make sure that glucose to cardio levels are in check to make sure that there is not an excess of glucose in the body, which could lead to the destruction of receptors and insulin production. 

Research is currently being conducted about how stress affects the body, one of the findings is that stress could be causing diabetes. In this way, the stress of your body could be a risk factor for both types of diabetes. In this way, the body is shutting down certain parts to accommodate the stress levels. In type one diabetes, researchers are finding that stress is causing autoimmune diseases in the body. Which in turn is causing the destruction of the beta cells in the pancreas. For type two diabetes, the receptors are shutting down because of prolonged stress. This can relate back to the idea of Ayurveda because there are preventative measures that can be put into place to reduce the amount of stress that a person is feeling. These are things like taking things off your plate or doing things such as meditation. 

Metabolism and Ayurveda have not necessarily been discussed as relating to one another, but we can see that there are overlapping paths between them. Metabolism and diabetes are caused because of an imbalance in the body and Ayurveda medicine relates to the whole well-being of the person. There are many things to manage the metabolism within the body and preventative measures may be the best solution at the moment. 

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