Ayurveda is one of the traditional medicinal systems of Indian. The philosophy behind Ayurveda is preventing unnecessary suffering and living a long healthy life. Ayurveda involves the use of natural elements to eliminate the root cause of the disease by restoring balance, at the same time create a healthy life-style to prevent the recurrence of imbalance. Herbal medicines have existed world-wide with long recorded history and they were used in ancient Chinese, Greek, Egyptian and Indian medicine for various therapies purposes. World Health Organization estimated that 80% of the word's inhabitants still rely mainly on traditional medicines for their health care. The subcontinent of India is well-known to be one of the major biodiversity centers with about 45,000 plant species. In India, about 15,000 medicinal plants have been recorded, in which the communities used 7,000-7,500 plants for curing different diseases. In Ayurveda, single or multiple herbs (polyherbal) are used for the treatment. The Ayurvedic literature Sarangdhar Samhita' highlighted the concept of polyherbalism to achieve greater therapeutic efficacy. The active phytochemical constituents of individual plants are insufficient to achieve the desirable therapeutic effects. When combining the multiple herbs in a particular ratio, it will give a better therapeutic effect and reduce the toxicity. This review mainly focuses on important of the polyherbalism and its clinical significance.

Polyherbal formulation: Concept of ayurveda.

Ayurveda is a science of life with a holistic approach to health and personalized medicine. It is one of the oldest medical systems, which comprises thousands of medical concepts and hypothesis. Interestingly, Ayurveda has ability to treat many chronic diseases such as cancer, diabetes, arthritis, and asthma, which are untreatable in modern medicine. Unfortunately, due to lack of scientific validation in various concepts, this precious gift from our ancestors is trailing. Hence, evidence-based research is highly needed for global recognition and acceptance of Ayurveda, which needs further advancements in the research methodology. The present review highlights various fields of research including literary, fundamental, drug, pharmaceutical, and clinical research in Ayurveda. The review further focuses to improve the research methodology for Ayurveda with main emphasis on the fundamental research. This attempt will certainly encourage young researchers to work on various areas of research for the development and promotion of Ayurveda.

Ayurvedic research and methodology: Present status and future strategies.

Prakriti and its associations with metabolism, chronic diseases, and genotypes: Possibilities of new born screening and a lifetime of personalized prevention

Association of constitutional type of Ayurveda with cardiovascular risk factors, inflammatory markers and insulin resistance

Since time immemorial humans have utilized natural products and therapies for their healing properties. Even now, in the age of genomics and on the cusp of regenerative medicine, the use of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) approaches represents a popular branch of health care. Furthermore, there is a trend towards a unified medical philosophy referred to as Integrative Medicine (IM) that represents the convergence of CAM and conventional medicine. The IM model not only considers the holistic perspective of the physiological components of the individual, but also includes psychological and mind-body aspects. Justification for and validation of such a whole-systems approach is in part dependent upon identification of the functional pathways governing healing, and new data is revealing relationships between therapies and biochemical effects that have long defied explanation. We review this data and propose a unifying theme: IM's ability to affect healing is due at least in part to epigenetic mechanisms. This hypothesis is based on a mounting body of evidence that demonstrates a correlation between the physical and mental effects of IM and modulation of gene expression and epigenetic state. Emphasis on mapping, deciphering, and optimizing these effects will facilitate therapeutic delivery and create further benefits.

/pdf/epigenetic-mechanisms-of-integrative-medicine-3b8i4vtwh3.pdf

Epigenetic Mechanisms of Integrative Medicine

The concept of personalized medicine has been around for as long as people have been practicing medicine. From Charaka to Hippocrates, all have practiced the personalized approach for treating a disease. In the 21(st) century, personalized medicine is all about DNA. Whereas the single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) and epigenetic factors influence drug response and form the basis of personalized medicine, the tridosha theory forms the basis of Prakriti-based medicine. It is well established by now that western allopathic medicine is excellent in handling acute medical crises, whereas Ayurveda has successfully demonstrated an ability to manage chronic disorders that Western medicine has been unable to cure. With effective integration of 'omics' Prakriti-based medicine can play a vital role in this changing scenario of global health wisdom as Ayurveda offers its modalities by way of ahara (diet), vihara (lifestyle), and aushadhi (medication), which are the three pillars of prakriti-based medicine making it a holistic science. Prakriti-based medicine and other traditional medicine systems have the potential to offer remedies to the challenging health issues like adverse drug reactions, drug withdrawals, and economic disparities among few. An integrative global approach could do wonders to health sciences benefiting a broad spectrum of patients.

Prakriti-based medicine: A step towards personalized medicine.

By 2020, it is predicted that non-communicable diseases will be causing seven out of every 10 deaths in developing countries. Indian traditional medicine system with the concept of personalized therapy in Ayurveda has the potential to offer remedies to these challenging health issues. Integration of Ayurveda, Siddha and Unani, the three Indian systems of medicine (ISM), along with homoeopathic and allopathic systems of medicine to ensure health for all citizens across the country is the new Mantra of the Union health ministry. To tap the potentials of our indigenous medicine systems and other popular systems of medicine it is important to assess the awareness among people and make efforts to popularize them. The present study was therefore carried out to assess the awareness among 200 respondents with the help of a multiple choice questionnaire by the interview method. Convenience sampling technique was employed. The awareness about lifestyle, diet, oil consumption needs more vigorous attention as observed in this study. The most popular choice was found to be groundnut oil. Around 4% of the participants used more than one medium of cooking. Forty-two percent of the participants observed fast regularly. Twenty-three percent of the participants did not include any form of exercise in their daily routine while walking was the most popular form of exercise performed by 43%. By using multiple comparisons it was observed that the difference between i) Allopathy- Homeopathy, ii) Allopathy - Ayurvedic and iii) Ayurvedic- Homeopathy as 15.5263, 7.1053 and 8.4211, respectively, are significant at a = 0.05. A larger sample size encompassing various economic strata could be a better index of popularity of various alternative medicine systems existing in different sections of our society.

Health awareness and popularity of alternative medicines among people of Jamnagar town: A cross - sectional study

BACKGROUND: There is a global as well national resurgence and revival of faith in drugs of plant origins. WHO has played a significant role in recognizing the relevance of these in today’s world. Herbal formulations and traditional medicines are generally polyherbal consisting of numerous bio-molecules because of which their identification and characterization is difficult. Also there are similar looking herbal materials that can often vary greatly in their medicinal properties. Thus the correct identification and quality is an essential prerequisite in quality assurance, safety and efficacy of the drug. Along with the morphological, pharmacognostical and chemical examination, molecular marker analysis has gained considerable importance in the standardization of herbs owing to many added advantages over the chemical markers. Molecular markers, DNA based technology, biostatistics and bioinformatics are an indispensible part of herbal drug research and standardization. DNA fingerprinting is one of the most promising tools for genome analysis as it not only identifies alterations in the genotypes of plant species, but is also used for the betterment of drug-yield by tissue culturing. This review provides a brief account of various molecular markers, DNA based technology and bioinformatics tools that are useful in herbal drug research and standardization with relevant examples.

/pdf/significance-of-molecular-markers-and-dna-based-technology-3omoj9vzmo.pdf

Jigisha Pancholi

Papers

Prakriti-based medicine: A step towards personalized medicine.

Health awareness and popularity of alternative medicines among people of Jamnagar town: A cross - sectional study

Significance of Molecular Markers and DNA Based Technology in Research and Standardization of Medicinal Plants: A Review