Friday, September 30, 2022

The Relationship between Ayurveda, Metabolism and Microbiome

 

What does the word “Ayurveda” exactly mean? Ayurveda is a natural system of medicine. Ayurveda was original from India about 3000 years ago. The Indians people think that illness is because of imbalance of people’s bodies, so there would be stress, and illness appeared. So, the ayurveda encourages you to use some kind of ways like meditation to help your body to recover.

I think it is similar to yoga. They deal with balance of mind, body and soul. But, ayurveda was found earlier than yoga. Ayurveda is a way “improve” yourself, but it is not science. Ayurveda could let you practice yourself to make your body better and mental healthier, in order it can be related with metabolism and microbiome. In Ayurveda, metabolism system of the body is represented by the Pitta Dosha spoken as known as the fire component within the body. So, everything you are doing to keep the Pitta dosha in adjust, will guarantee you metabolism system remains vigorous. Ayurveda is also related to microbiome in our body, ayurveda has lots of formula and medicine to make benefits to microbiome. According to an article I read online called “The Microbiome in Health and Disease from the Perspective of Modern Medicine and Ayurveda”, showed that both ginger and an herbal preparation called Triphala can have advantageous impacts on the microbiome. Triphala comprises of three fruits: Emblica officinalis (Amalaki), Terminalia bellerica (Bibhitaki), and Terminalia chebula (Haritaki). It can make benefits to elimination (Wallace, 2020). I think this part of ayurveda is a little bit same with traditional Chinese medicine, traditional Chinese medicine is also a way to use herbal preparation to make benefits to your body.

I was surprised by the metabolic pathway that it is so complex, I think they are very easy previously, now I understand how complex they are, and there are some many reactions people could have. Diabetes is a disease about over glucose levels, it can be described as pandemic because of physical inactivity which can cause health, economic, environmental and social consequences. There are 2 types of diabetes, they are type 1 diabetes and type 2 diabetes. Type 1 diabetes in a people, that people often look like thin or normal, but that people have diabetes, this is very rare, but it did. 90%-95% of diabetes in U.S are type 2 diabetes. Without appropriate levels of insulin, cells are not able to appropriately take-up and metabolize glucose, so glucose levels Can increase within the circulatory system. So, cells basically starve within the middle of bounty of sugars. And glucagon can send Indeed more sugar into the circulatory system. Diabetes can also cause a lot of diseases that related to eye, kidney, heart, brain and etc. I was surprised that drugs could cause type 1 diabetes. I think that is interesting. According to the leading causes of death in the U.S, diabetes is ranked No.7 cause of death in the U.S. I think we should exercise after watch the PowerPoint, lack of exercise could cause a lot of diseases like obesity, diabetes, cancer and etc. I noticed that the annual cost of a diabetes patient is 2.3 times higher than a normal patient. And, the data that surprised me is the population of diabetes patients increased 41% from 2007. But for diabetes patients to get good care in U.S. Diabetes could also cause a lot of diseases that related to diabetes, and they are also very expensive to take care of those kind of diseases, like ischemic stroke, neuropathy, and etc. These are the direct cost of diabetes, and there are also some indirect costs. Diabetes can also cause the short-term shortage of labor, if it is serious, or even lost labor due to death.

I think there is a relationship between low income, poor diets and high crime areas. Obesity is normal in families which live in those areas. Because they are lack of exercise and poor diet, they could get a lot of diseases and that could cost a lot to take care of them, so this is became a negative cycle. But diabetes patients need high-level treatment. Ayurveda suggests people to practice, to exercise, in order it can reduce the risk of getting diabetes. So, I think ayurveda is a useful way for diabetes.

Microbiome is all bacteria, viruses, fungi and etc. Not all microbiome is harmful to our human bodies, most of them are beneficial for our human bodies, like probiotics and lactobacillus, they are helpful to digestion system in order to help metabolism system. Ayurveda uses herbal preparation to help with microbiome in order to help metabolism system as I discussed above.

As a conclusion, the relationship between ayurveda, metabolism and microbiome are very close, any one of them could affect others. If we practice ayurveda, use ayurveda preparation, it could make benefits to metabolism system and microbiome which will also help metabolism. In a kind of view, ayurveda could make some benefits to diabetes.

 


Citation

Wallace, Robert Keith. “The Microbiome in Health and Disease from the Perspective of Modern Medicine and Ayurveda.” Medicina (Kaunas, Lithuania), MDPI, 11 Sept. 2020,            https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7559905/.

2 comments:

  1. As I read your blog post, I really liked how you tied Ayurveda into metabolism and the gut's microbiome. This balance is very important and, as you said, the metabolic pathway is very complex. Our microbiome must be balanced in order for each of these pathways to work efficiently and effectively.

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  2. I liked how you tied in yoga a little bit to ayurveda because I thought of the same thing when I first learned about it. I thought of that connection you make with the earth and your body while practicing yoga and that's pretty much what ayurveda is all about. I think to effectively battle disease, you need to have that good strong connection or else nothing is going to really work as a whole. You can fix specific parts but the perspective of healing the entire body is more effective.

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