 Every disease is just a sign of your tissues struggling to normalise and come back to healthy.
"There is only one disease, it is manifested in different ways" - Ayurveda. Disease is a word used meaningfully. When your income is fully used to renovate your house, you will find it hard to enjoy normal day-today activties. Your weekend trip might need to be cancelled, your shopping might need to be budgeted, your outing might need to be postponed. It's not easy. Not easy = lack of ease = disease. This is exactly what happens in a normal "disease". Most of the energy is allocated in dealing with the toxicity. Your immune system is fully engaged in removing the toxins and re-normalising the body. So, your day-today movements such as getting up and morning walks might be too hard, going to office and picking up the phone will be not easy. Not easy = lack of ease = disease. What are the types of manifestations of disease? Here, inflammation is body's attack on the toxins/pathogen. Infection is when body is too weak to attack the toxins completely. Autoimmune conditions are when our immune system stops protecting these tissues and the affected tissues are too weak to fight against the toxins. Degenerative conditions are when toxins overpower the immune system and turns off normal functions. Most diseases start with the formation or introduction of toxins. And, these toxins form or start in the gut and migrates to the weakest tissues. Unless it's an emergency, a holistic treatment is to eliminate the toxins and repair the tissues. This usually starts with optimising the gut. Then dissolving the toxins, moving them into the gut and flushing it. It's last stage is to repair the damaged tissues and re-empowering the weakness.When we get diagnosed with a name such as sinusitis or arthritis, it simply says body is reporting about some thing is not suitable for it. It could be related to anything like environmental, psychological, nutritional, movement or the like. A diagnosis or illness is like 'being wet' while you are walking in the rain. Would you heat up the body somehow, use an umbrella or get out of the rain? Ayurveda works with the cause and process of an illness so that we can take you out of the "rain" and keep you warm and dry. Ayurveda aims at keeping you whole and buzzing with full energy. Case study.
Addressing the case uplifts you. It upgrades your life. Working only with symptoms and diagnosis keeps the quality of life, very low. This is applicable to any disease. Chronic or acute. We address the superficial symptoms along with deep pathology based on the necessity. Instead of taking innumerable medicines for multiple conditions, Ayurveda identifies the causative factors and take you out of the trouble!
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 Why do I need a coffee?
When you are sluggish, you will need a stimulant. The demand for the number and strength of the coffee depends on the nature of your sluggishness. Why do I need a snack? When your previous meal is inadequate. Why do I need sugar? When you are low in energy. Why do I need a biscuit? When you feel fragmented, low in energy and didn't eat your previous meal adequately. Why do I need a big dinner? Mostly, because your breakfast and lunch were inadequate. Why do I need more salt these days? Your electricity, sodium-potassium pump is not working that well. Why do I need savories? Your hydrochloric acid is too weak. Ayurveda suggests a Power Routine.
But, fine-tuned for each individual. A power routine is simply to keep the inner and outer worlds in perfect sync. Keeping these two worlds in sync is just like keeping your computer firmly connected to the power. The routine is the quality cable! Staying healthy and getting better may become a lot easier with this approach.
When I sleep better, I can think better. When I exercise, my sleep is better. When I eat a light dinner, I'm motivated in the morning. When I chew more, my acidity is under control.  Whats body type?
Body type is the concept genetic skills. It's assessed based on your body shape while you are healthy and fit. Body shape is linked to the five geometrical shapes and four universal forces (based on modern science) such as gravitational force, electromagnetic force, strong force and weak force. Whats the benefit of knowing your body type? Once you know what your type is you can engage in appropriate aspects of life - work, hobby, interior and outdoor designs etc. It helps you immensely in designing your nutrition and understanding your relationships. Which one is the best body type? Each body type is unique. Each has a large set of skills. So, the answer is, while there is no better body types, understanding your type will most definitely help you have a happier, healthier and most sustainable life. Can body type change? Since your genetic make up never changes your body type will also never change. Is a body type linked to a particular health issue? No. Not at all. Body type doesn't change. Its constant. It's about your natural, biological or genetic skills. It's not linked to genetic or acquired illness. Also, body type is different from 1) body, 2) illness, 3) tendencies, 4) preferences, 5) personalities, 6) diseases and so on. Body changes due to time and lifestyle. Tendencies are linked to conditioning and biological issues. Preference and personality can change due to various reasons. Illness can emerge and subside due to specific reasons. Whats the best time to analyse body type? Late teens onwards. How long does it take to diagnose body type? First of all its not a disease to diagnose! So, it is only analysed or assessed. Secondly, it takes a minute or less in a face to face consultation, What is the use of knowing body type? When you discover your natural (biological) abilities (skills/potentials), you can easily apply them in life. This bring fulfilment, joy and wellness. This will directly reflect in your health. Life becomes more sustainable. Ayurvedic constitution is all about sustainability and total wellness. Is it another version of dosha-typing? This system is based on five elements and science. This five-element system is a more advanced, logical and hence extremely useful in all levels of a person - work, relationship, hobbies, business and more. Current dosha-typing is illogical, misleading and often depressing. I put on weight easily. Am I a Kapha type? There are other questions as well! I forget things easily. Am I a Vata type? I get angry easily. Am I a Pitta type? Weight gain, forgetfulness and short temper - all have many reasons. They have actually nothing to do with body type. Nutrition, sleep, exercise, stress, emotional factors, relationship elements, work style etc. may be the culprit! Once you remove the reason, you become centred, relaxed and productive. Can I follow a dosha based diet and lifestyle for better health? A specific diet is primarily based on your digestion, metabolism, lifestyle and health issues. For example - a brick-layer needs high protein diet. A full-time meditation teacher doesn't. If you have a sensitivity or intolerance, your diet needs to be modified. If you suffer from an inflammation you need an anti-inflammatory diet. All these can happen to any type!  A question emerges usually soon after a client purchases Ayurveda products. Has it got any side-effect? Side-effect is the secondary, typically undesirable effect of a drug or medical treatment is known as the side effect.
When we know that around 114 people end up in the Australian hospitals with permanent liver damage due to the Panadol (paracetamol) side effects, this question becomes very relevant. Side-effects became a common and major issue with the introduction of molecule based drugs. Especially, single molecule based drugs. When this type of drugs was introduced they had proven and accepted side effects. When a molecule is removed from its biological environment, it generated a good-effect along with some bad-effects. Remember a product Vioxx was banned after its side effect started killing people in Australia while it was effectively used for killing the symptoms of arthritis? But, we are not concerned about the side effect of toast or salad. Ice cream, pies, and other food items are not attacked with the side-effect-question for the same reason. Because they don't have any side effects, as they are natural and nature's own poly-molecular compounds. In other words, none of these food items are based on a man-handled single molecule. A biochemistry scientist once told me that any given leaf or plant part can have over 5,000 different natural phytochemicals or molecules. So, with your breakfast and dinner, you are eating tens of thousands of different molecules. Of course they are all traditionally processed, still with their natural therapeutic empowering effects. So, we don't think or talk about side-effects, and never suffer from side effects. Please remember that the effect of overuse, underuse or abuse are different topics here. So are the allergies and sensitivities. They are not side-effects. What about Ayurvedic products? Ayurveda uses natural materials such as plant and food ingredients to make potent medicines. It has an extended kitchen to make these ingredients into medicines though drying, grinding, boiling and fermenting. There are exceptions where certain ingredients are heated at 300-800 degree centigrade in air-tight ceramic and clay pots. Natural products and natural processing methods. Just like food, Ayurvedic products are poly-molecular and containing nature's phyto-molecular integrity. Hence, safe when used according to your practitioner's advise, at the right dose and frequency. Apart from this, Ayurveda has strict guidelines on purity, safety and efficacy right from the process of herb collection. The final product is tested vigorously to make sure each product is all about 100% wellness. Visit an Ayurveda pharmacy such as Kottakkal Arya Vaidya Sala.  Wow - microbiome!We just found out an organ, that the science failed to see for over a hundred years! Microbiome or Microbiota! According to wikipedia microbiome or a microbiota is an "ecological community of commensal, symbiotic and pathogenicmicroorganisms found in and on all multicellular organisms studied to date from plants to animals. A microbiota includes bacteria, archaea, protists, fungi and viruses. New name, Old organ!Connection between nature and a living body is well documented in Ayurveda. Conversion of nutrients into body is also well studied in Ayurveda. Grahani, Pittadharakala, Paachakapittam, Jatharagni, Udaanavata etc are major topics or terminology when it comes to digestion and absorption of nutrient that involves the concept of microbiome. Ayurvedic recommendation of the use of small dose of traditionally fermented food preparations explains the vital role of microbes in this area! This sudden discovery of the "new" organ suggest that the modern science is following the Ayurvedic understanding that health is based on a happy gut and any "cure" or "effective management" of disease must start with gut correction! But, it might take another 1000 years before they can actually do it as the scientists are still thinking in terms of molecules than "synergy". I will give you an example. Ayurveda uses plant parts to speed up the healing. A plant part can have 5000+ phytochemical molecules. Its easy to prove or disprove the effect of a single molecule (most pharmaceutical drugs are single molecules) but, how to you prove the effect of a spinach leaf or ginger root in the lab! Its impossible! Ayurveda has a simple mechanism to understand and use plant parts in a health issue effectively. It has the precise methodology to study the healing progress so that they can prescribe the appropriate plant parts in each stage of healing. Modern science is nowhere near. I am trying to say that Ayurveda has a different, unique and precise approach. Both sciences are different in their angles and methodologies. So, assessing one with the other is not going to draw a clear conclusion. Gut and psychology syndromeRecently, our modern researchers found out there is "some" strong connection between gut and brain, as they unexpectedly found a chemical pathway! Ayurvedic healing is always based on Gut and Tissue connection.
In every treatment, we cleanse, correct and upgrade the gut functions along with a holistic Ayurveda treatment. Even when the so-called incurable genetic conditions are treated effectively with Ayurveda, the first step is to work with gut functions - microbiome!  Great time to renovate your immune system!
Lets celebrate it.
Ayurveda text books are written in a "crack these nuts" or "catch me if you can" style, when it comes to advanced principles. Here is one of those. Ayurvedic Seasonology explains how to link seasons to dosha, bhuta, agni, ama, vimshati gunas, shad rasa, physiology and pathology. Once mastered, you will be able to calculate the exact health effects and ill effects of sequential activities we perform on a daily basis.
Why warm spring is linked to cold astringent, while all other flavours are linked to appropriate seasons? Just like the daily and monthly metabolism, there is yearly one as well. It starts with the nourishing winter. This will explain why we get a bad year, when we have a bad winter. And a good year, if we do the winter well. Lets explore the above question. Physiology Early and late winters are energy conserving time, hence the raised appetite and also need to eat well. This energy is saved and stocked in late winter. This sock, even though its astringent, not active in late winter. Spring activates this astringent, summer spreads it, monsoon steams it and autumn assimilates it if we follow the regimen in each season. Early winter starts it again. Pathology Unwholesome lifestyle in winter causes ama accumulation, stagnation or sedimentation. This sedimentation, even though its astringent, not active in late winter. Warm spring activates it, resulting in hay fever like symptoms. Summer cooks it, monsoon steams it and autumn removes the left overs if we follow the regimen in each season. Hence winter is linked to Astringent, even though astringent is cold and spring is warm. Ayurvedic Seasonology gives a practitioner a lot more insight into the person and their lifestyle. Your treatment becomes a lot more precise, result will be a lot faster. Lets talk about how to apply Ayurvedic Seasonology to your clinic....  What is dementia
Dementia describes a collection of symptoms that are caused by disorders affecting the brain. It is a brain and memory condition with various symptoms. It includes issues with thinking, behaviour and the ability to perform everyday tasks. Brain function is affected enough to interfere with the person’s normal social or working life. Who gets dementia Most people with dementia are older. But, there are cases reported where the suffer is in their 40s. So, it is important to remember that not all older people get dementia. It is definitely not a normal part of ageing. While it is more common after the age of 65 years, dementia can happen to anybody. What causes dementia Ayurveda finds two reasons. 1) Lifestyle reasons that includes inappropriate routines, nutrition and exercise. 2) Metabolic and vascular insufficiencies. And, 3) The sufferer "realises" his experiences are of no use any more. Types of dementia Modern researches have found that there are many different forms of dementia and each has its own causes. The most common types of dementia are Alzheimer's disease, Vascular dementia, Parkinson's disease, Dementia with Lewy bodies, Fronto Temporal Lobar Degeneration (FTLD), Huntington's disease, Alcohol related dementia (Korsakoff's syndrome) and Creutzfeldt-Jacob disease. Is it dementia? There are a number of conditions that produce symptoms similar to dementia. These include some vitamin and hormone deficiencies, depression, medication clashes or overmedication, infections and brain tumours. It is essential that a medical diagnosis is obtained at an early stage when symptoms first appear, to ensure that a person who has a treatable condition is diagnosed and treated correctly. If the symptoms are caused by dementia, an early diagnosis will mean early access to support, information, and medication should it be available. Can dementia be inherited? This will depend on the cause of the dementia, so it is important to have a firm medical diagnosis. If you are concerned about the risk of inheriting dementia, consult your doctor or contact Dementia Australia to speak to a counsellor. Most cases of dementia are not inherited. What are the early signs of dementia? The early signs of dementia are very subtle and vague and may not be immediately obvious. Some common symptoms may include:
What is the treatment for dementia Restoring a personal wellness routine, correcting digestive and metabolic issues, optimising nutrient circulation and engaging the sufferer meaningfully into family, friends or community. Case study 74 year old female with 3 years of severe dementia was totally incapable of looking after herself. She was given the following for 4 weeks:
 The idea of Evidence Based Medicine (EBM) is great. The reality, though, not so much. Human perception is often flawed, so the premise of EBM is to formally study medical treatments and there have certainly been some successes. Consider the procedure of angioplasty. Doctors insert a catheter into the blood vessels of the heart and use a balloon like device to open up the artery and restore blood flow. In acute heart attacks studies confirm that this is an effective procedure. In chronic heart disease the COURAGE study and more recently the ORBITAstudy showed that angioplasty is largely useless. EBM helped distinguish the best use of an invasive procedure. So, why do prominent physicians call EBM mostly useless? The 2 most prestigious journals of medicine in the world are The Lancet and The New England Journal of Medicine. Richard Horton, editor in chief of The Lancet said this in 2015 “The case against science is straightforward: much of the scientific literature, perhaps half, may simply be untrue” Dr. Marcia Angell, former editor in chief of NEJM wrote in 2009 that, “It is simply no longer possible to believe much of the clinical research that is published, or to rely on the judgment of trusted physicians or authoritative medical guidelines. I take no pleasure in this conclusion, which I reached slowly and reluctantly over my two decades as an editor” This has huge implications. Evidence based medicine is completely worthless if the evidence base is false or corrupted. It’s like building a wooden house knowing the wood is termite infested. What caused this sorry state of affairs? Well, Dr. Relman another former editor in chief of the NEJM said this in 2002 “The medical profession is being bought by the pharmaceutical industry, not only in terms of the practice of medicine, but also in terms of teaching and research. The academic institutions of this country are allowing themselves to be the paid agents of the pharmaceutical industry. I think it’s disgraceful” The people in charge of the system — the editors of the most important medical journals in the world, gradually learn over a few decades that their life’s work is being slowly and steadily corrupted. Physicians and universities have allowed themselves to be bribed. The examples in medicine are everywhere. Research is almost always paid for by pharmaceutical companies. But studies done by industry are well known to have positive results far more frequently. Trials run by industry are 70% more likely than government funded trials to show a positive result. Think about that for a second. If EBM says that 2+2 = 5 is correct 70% of the time, would you trust this sort of ‘science’? Selective Publication — Negative trials (those that show no benefit for the drugs) are likely to be suppressed. For example, in the case of antidepressants, 36/37 studies that were favourable to drugs were published. But of the studies not favorable to drugs, a paltry 3/36 were published. Selective publication of positive (for the drug company) results means that a review of the literature would suggest that 94% of studies favor drugs where in truth, only 51% were actually positive. Suppose you know that your stockbroker publishes all his winning trades, but suppresses all his losing trades. Would you trust him with your money? But yet, we trust EBM with our lives, even though the same thing is happening. Let’s look at the following graph of the number of trials completed versus those that were published. In 2008, the company Sanofi completed 92 studies but only a piddly 14 were published. Who gets to decide which gets published and which does not? Right. Sanofi. Which ones do you think will be published? The ones that favor its drugs, or the ones that prove their drugs do not work? Right. Keep in mind that this is the only rational course of action for Sanofi, or any other company to pursue. It’s idiotic to publish data that harms yourself. It’s financial suicide. So this sort of rational behavior will happen now, and it will not stop in the future. But knowing this, why do we still believe the evidence based medicine, when the evidence base is completely biased? An outside observer, only looking at all published data, will conclude that the drugs are far, far more effective than they are in reality. Yet, if you point this out in academic circles, people label you a quack, who does not ‘believe the evidence’. Rigging of Outcomes — Or consider the example of registration of primary outcomes. Prior to year 2000, companies doing trials did not need to declare what end points they measured. So they measure many different endpoints and simply figured out which one looked best and then declared the trial a success. Kind of like tossing a coin, looking at which one come up more, and saying that they were backing the winning side. If you measured enough outcomes, something was bound to come up positive. In 2000, the government moved to stop these shenanigans. They required companies to register what they were measuring ahead of time. Prior to 2000, 57% of trials showed a positive result. After 2000, a paltry 8% showed good results. More evidence of the evidence base being completely corrupted by commercial interest, and the academic physicians who were getting rich on it tacitly allowing corruption because they know that you don’t bite the hand that feeds you  ‘Advertorials’ — Or this example of a review paper in the NEJM that fracture rates caused by the lucrative bisphosphonate drugs were “very rare”. Not only did the drug companies pay lots of consulting fees to the doctors, three of the authors of this review were full time employees! To allow an advertorial to be published as the best scientific fact is scandalous. Doctors, trusting the NEJM to publish quality, unbiased advice have no idea that this review article is pure advertising. Yet, we still consider the NEJM to be the very pinnacle of evidence based medicine. Instead, as all the editors of the journals sadly recognize, it has become lucre-based publishing. Mo money = better results. Money from Reprints — The reasons for this problem is obvious to all — it’s insanely profitable for journals to take money from Big Pharma. Journals want to be read. So they all try to get a high Impact Factor (IF). To do this, you need to get cited by other authors. And nothing boosts ratings like a blockbuster produced by Big Pharma. They have the contacts and the sales force to make any study a landmark. A less obvious benefit is the fees that are generated by Big Pharma purchasing articles for reprint. If a company publishes an article in the NEJM, they may order several hundred thousand copies of the article to be distributed to unsuspecting doctors everywhere. These fees are not trivial. The NEJM publisher Massachusetts Medical Society gets 23% of its income from reprints. The Lancet — 41%. The American Medical Association — a gut busting 53%. No wonder these journals are ready to sell their readers (ordinary physicians) down the river. It pays. Who needs journalistic ethics when there’s a Mercedes in the driveway? Mo money, baby. Mo money. Bribery of Journal Editors — A recent study by Liu et al in the BMJ shed more light on the problem of crooked journals. Crooked journal editors. Editors play a crucial role in determining the scientific dialogue by deciding which manuscripts are published. They determine who the peer reviewers are. Using the Open Payments database, they looked at how much money the editors of the most influential journals in the world were taking from industry sources. This includes ‘research’ payments, which are largely unregulated. As mention previously, much ‘research’ consists of going to meetings in exotic locale. It funny how many conferences are held in beautiful European cities like Barcelona, and how few are done in brutally cold Quebec City. Of all journal editors that could be assessed, 50.6% were on the take. The average payment in 2014 was $27,564. Each. This does not include an average $37, 330 given for ‘research’ payments. Other particularly corrupt journals include: This is slightly horrifying. Each editor of the Journal of the American College of Cardiology received, on average $475 072 personally and another $119 407 for ‘research’. With 35 editors, that’s about $15 million in bribes to doctors. No wonder the JACC loves drugs and devices. It pays the private school bills. Mo money = we’ll publish your crooked studies for you. Mo money, baby, mo money. Publication Bias — The evidence base that EBM depends upon is completely biased. Some people think I’m really anti-Pharma, but this is not really true. Big Pharma companies have a duty to their shareholders to make money. They have no duty to patients. On the other hand, doctors have a duty to patients. Universities have a duty to remain unbiased. It is the failure of doctors and universities to keep their greedy paws out of the corrupting influence of Big Pharma money that is the problem. If Big Pharma is allowed to spend lots of $$$ paying off doctors and universities and professors, then it should do so to maximize profits. That is their mission statement. Doctors love to blame Big Pharma companies because it takes peoples gaze off the real problem — lots of doctors taking $$$ from anybody who will pay. The pharma industry is not the problem. Bribery of university doctors is the problem — one that is easily fixed if the political will exists. Consider this study. Looking at studies in the field of neurodegenerative disease, researchers looked at all the studies that were started but never finished or never published. Approximately 28% of studies never made it to the finish line. That’s a problem. If all the studies that don’t look promising for drug candidates are not published, then it appears that the drugs are way way more effective than they really are. But the published ‘evidence base’ would falsely support the drug. Indeed, Pharma sponsored trials were 5 times more likely to be unpublished. Imagine you have a coin flipping contest. Suppose a player call ‘Big Pharma” chooses heads, and also pays the coin flipper. Every time the coin flipper pulls up tails, the results don’t count. Every time it comes up heads, it counts. This happens 28% of the time. Now, instead of a 50/50 split of heads and tails, it’s more like a 66/34 split of heads/tails. So the ‘evidence based medicine’ lover claims that heads is far more likely to come up than tails, and castigates people who don’t believe the results as ‘anti-science’. Evidence based medicine depends entirely upon having a reliable base of evidence (studies). If the evidence base is tampered with, and paid for, then EBM as a science is completely useless. Indeed, the very editors whose entire careers have been EBM have now discovered it to be worthless. Does the CEO of Phillip Morris (maker of Marlboro cigarettes) smoke? That tells you all you need to know about the health risks. Do the editors of the NEJM and the Lancet believe EBM anymore? Not at all. So neither should we. We can’t believe evidence based medicine until the evidence has been cleaned up from the corrupting influence of commercial interests. Financial conflicts of interest (COI), also known as gifts to doctors, is a well accepted practice. A national survey in the New England Journal of Medicine in 2007 shows that 94% of physicians had ties to the pharmaceutical industry. This gravy train only rides in one direction. From Big Pharma to the wallets of doctors. Sure Big Pharma can simply pay doctors directly, and it does plenty of that. It’s no surprise that medical students with more exposure to pharmaceutical reps develop a more positive attitude towards them. Many medical schools have limited exposure of medical students in response, but declined to get off the gravy train themselves. There is a simple relationship between how prominent a physician is (more articles published — almost always academic doctors and professors) and how much money they take from Big Pharma. Mo prominent = mo money. Further, there is a ‘clear and strong link’ between taking industry money and minimizing the risk of side effects of medications. What, you thought people teach at prestigious institutions like universities for the good of mankind? Maybe that’s why they went there, but that’s not why they stay. They came for the science. They stayed for the money. So here’s a damning list of all the problems of EBM When the evidence base of medicine is bought and paid for, people die. That is how doctors have created this opioid crisis that kills thousands of people. Pharmaceutical companies want to pay off doctors, just as drug lord want to pay off judges and police officers. Doctors, being human, should put safeguards against this temptation. Unfortunately, doctors and universities have been willing participants in this game of killing for profit. We need to end it now. End the corruption of the universities. Stop the bribery of doctors. Dr. Aseem Malhotra will be speaking about this very issue to the European Parliament this Thursday.  |
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