Mega study on ayurveda’s healing powers

For the first time leading research and medical institutions in the US-Harvard University, Scripps Clinic, University of California San Diego, Mt Sinai University, University of California San Francisco and Duke University are collaborating on a project to study Ayurveda’s healing powers.  Called the `Self-Directed Biological Transformation Initiative (SBTI) Research Study’, the study is being conducted at the Chopra Center for Wellbeing in California.

The center, run by wellness expert Deepak Chopra, had earlier conducted a smaller study to examine the effects of meditation and yoga on gene expression. The findings from the older study showed that a week of meditation and yoga practice led to an increase in expression of genes that support rejuvenation of the body, a reduction in expression of genes associated with the stress response, and a large increase in telomerase levels (an enzyme that helps maintain structural identity of genes).

In the SBTI study, researchers will be analyzing the impact of Ayurvedic treatments on participants’ genes, certain hormones associated with metabolism and mood change, bacteria present in the gut and on the skin, inflammation markers, weight, stress makers etc. The body’s healing system is still little understood because of the complex inputs – thoughts, emotions, diet, stress, exercise, and immune response – that affect healing. The picture is further clouded when isolated findings overlap or contradict one another. In the context of Ayurveda, therapies and practices aren’t done in isolation. Instead of focusing on local symptoms, the diagnosis is systemic. Only now is Western medicine beginning to understand that a blanket condition like `stress’ or `inflammation’ connects many diverse disorders, including heart disease, cancer, and diabetes.
Ayurveda is widely practiced and followed in India. There are 2,458 Ayurveda hospitals running in India under the government’s directorate of Ayush (Ayurveda, yoga, unani, siddha and homoeopathy). However since there have been few scientific studies on the safety and efficacy of the system in the West, it is often perceived as a pseudoscience there. This perception is now changing.

So far, the results ranging from the effects of meditation on beneficial gene activity to Ashwagandha on Alzheimer’s pathology are certainly looking sufficiently promising to continue.

The study also has the potential to throw light on which brain-function related genes and chemicals are turned “on” or turned “off ” by an Ayurvedic diet and lifestyle.  That type of information can help us not only better establish how Ayurveda works at a cellular level but also how best to integrate it into a modern healthy lifestyle.

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