‘Scientists should change approach towards ayurveda, explore science in it’

Nagpur: Ayurveda is a clinical life science. Meticulous study and inclusion of Ayurveda in their research can be useful for the scientists to find out many unanswered questions in health sciences, said Dr Sanjeev Rastogi, from State Ayurvedic College and Hospital, Lucknow, on Thursday.
Dr Rastogi was speaking on ‘Routing Ayurveda principles through mainstream science’ as part of the plenary session on the application of ancient medical sciences.
Dr Rastogi said that Ayurveda works largely upon the therapy of preponderance.
“Several signs and symptoms described in Ayurveda can be considered as effective tools to diagnose pre-diabetic or pre-hypertensive conditions. We may avoid costly and complicated tests at the initial level due to this,” he said.
A statistician from the University of Lucknow Prof Sheela Misra presented a comparative analysis of health profiles of people in USA where only modern medicine is in practice.
“Too much modern medicine is creating problems in the USA. According to CDC, more than 50% of USA citizens are diagnosed with a mental disorder at some point in their lifetime. For one-third of them, mental illness begins before the age of 24 years. Suicide is the second leading cause of death amongst young people between 15-35 age group,” she said adding that the human mind has a pharmacy within and it needs to be stimulated which our ancient science can teach.
Test to detect liver diseases from blood serum developed
A proprietary diagnostic test has been developed which is highly sensitive and is capable of detecting liver disease from the blood serum samples. Dr Bishnupada Chatterjee, from Department of Natural Sciences, West Bengal University of Technology, Kolkata, said, the test uses only blood serum samples, is minimally invasive and inexpensive. Dr Chatterjee also highlighted the potential for commercial development of the proprietary test. He explained how Hepatitis B virus is a significant cause of chronic liver disease in India.