Hi all
In view of today's news that a titan of Wall Street is suffering from cancer, I write to discuss cancer and Ayurveda; kindly give me critical feedback. I am helping a scholar setup a pilot ayurveda hospital project in Ujjain, India.
Target audience for this post is interested audience and people with cancer. It is true that statistical data about cancer healing data for Ayurveda is hard to get. I write this on qualitative grounds than quantitative grounds. This post is not intended to convince an average scientist or knowledge seeker about trying Ayurveda. It is intended to convince a serious seeker willing to sweat it out by research that Ayurveda is a worthy approach. While Ayurveda is not "predictable" just as radiation, chemo and surgery are, the hope is that interested readers will read up about it more.
I sympathize with this titan and have prayed for him. In case this titan does not want to "take chances" and just go to Sloan Kettering cancer center in New York City for a "tested" treatment, it is in his long-term interest to check out Ayurveda. What does he loose in listening to alternative viewpoints for a month on a "health vacation" in India? He has to figure out what to do with the free radicals generated in chemo and radiation therapies. How do they solve cancer when they blindly kill so many healthy cells? It is true that I am somewhat trivializing the science of chemotherapy.
Cancer is a rather serious disease. Some of close relatives are at various stages of disease and therapy.
Cancer is a dreadful disease for anyone to have. Any practical solution in combating cancer is of paramount importance. The approaches in medicine towards cancer include radiation, chemo and surgical therapies. The first two approaches are essentially killing cells, hoping that we effectively kill all cancerous cells while losing some good cells. The chemotherapy drugs affect pathways that are used by malignant cells, but do cause significant damage to good cells: that is the reason why people have side effects. Radiation therapy just kills all cells in the area; the downside is killing of good cells and creation of free radicals that have the potential to do more damage. The modern medicine is essentially trying to make best use of a bad bargain in treating cancer.
Where modern medicine fails is in understanding and evangelizing the need for a holistic life to avoid disease. For example excessive sensory stimulation does disorient individuals. But televisions run for about 12 hours a day in hospitals in every room! My surgeon says "business pressures have overtaken science." The body has innate recovery mechanisms that will help healing left to itself. Television disturbs these mechanisms.
Modern medicine does understand the effect of foods on health. Ben Franklin said "you are what you eat". For example, I have a migraine today as the sauce used to make raita (yogurt, cucumber and spices) had garlic in it. I avoid garlic as it interferes with my two hour a day meditation sessions. I have found that eating excessive proteins (tofu/Indian cottage cheese) is not good for me sometimes. If I eat too much, I feel less healthy. A measure is how much the food affects my ability to take deep breaths (pranayama yoga). Modern medicine does not have much work on what promotes soft brain tissue and mind best: hot milk. Modern medicine does not focus on resting the digestive system occasionally; my wife fasts for 36 hours once in 15 days. Even doctors eat way too much junk food.
Modern doctors hardly have a truly holistic life styles. For example, medical interns go without sleep for 30 hours. my own surgeon has admitted to be too stressed. I humbly appealed to my doctor to incorporate a practice to meditate shortly prior to touching a scalpel.
We all get sick due to incorrect eating or drinking. I overeat; I suspect that is what most of the world does. Incorrect eating is the core of most disease. Ayurveda hospital stay convinced me to reduce eating (in a good way). They convinced me to eat within three hours of cooking when I can. They convinced me to give up the spicy hot Telugu pickles.
Ayurveda actually understands that the root cause of disease is germs, unhealthy diet and lifestyle. Two-thirds of it focused on good living. The other one-third is dealing with cure. The cure is not just symptomatic as in modern medicine. It goes deeper. While necessary, modern pain killers are used excessively resulting in blockage of symptomatic channels: the pain is a symptom that something is wrong deep inside.
The side effects of modern chemical based medicine are not well understood. I know of a serious cancer case where the cancer as induced by prolonged steroid use for a condition that had a cure in ayurveda, using herbs. The side effects of herbal medicine are fewer than chemical medicines. I forget the details here: certain high blood pressure drug was made by isolating a chemical from a herbal product. The herbal product cures high blood pressure without side effects in ayurveda. But the chemical drug from the same herbal base was found to have serious fatal side effects down the road.
I had spent three weeks in ayurvedic hospital in January when the only option in modern medicine being a major surgery due to condition induced by antibiotic side effects. It convinced me that it is a worthy approach to medicine. It motivated me to buy books on Ayurveda before I got distracted by more sublime books.
The case for ayurveda wrt cancer can be summarized as:
- better palliative care for parent with terminal illness. Recently it was determined that a person's cancer is hopeless. I suggested that he/she be allowed to lead the remainder of life in peace rather than worry and stress. Thus just stop all allopathic treatment, which is not working anyway, and try ayurveda.
- better system to deal with side effects of radiation, chemo
- mitigation of conditions leading to cancer; preventive detoxification every 5 years.
- cure of conditions that lead to cancer. My doctor has been managing a few cancer patients for four years without surgical, radiation and chemo therapies.
Our body is already contaminated with lots of fat soluble toxins. How does one get them out? Modern medicine has no solution other than adding more toxins. Ayurveda make you drink lots of special ghee (clarified butter) and then gets the ghee (after digestion) out via diarrhea. When I heard it the first time, I was concerned about excess fat. The doctor, Dr. A. Ramkumar, responded that studies have shown that the amount of fat in the body goes down after the procedure.
The downside to ayurveda is the difficulty in finding competent doctors. The side effects are fewer compared to modern chemical based medicine. One needs to weed rouge elements who exploit people's ignorance to sell fake ayurvedic products. They are a large number of people out to make a quick buck in Ayurveda. I have found reliable hospitals to address this risk.
Kindly read
1. Ashtanga Hridaya,
2. books by Dr. Vasant Lad I have interacted with his students and they were very knowledgeable.
3. www.iss.it/binary/farm/cont/cancer%20ayurvedic.1105357764.pdf
4. Read Swami Sivananda's books on health, ayurveda and pranayama meditation. He was a stellar medical professional prior to deciding that motivating people to meditate is a better public service. His autobiography is amazing. He even talks of benefits of meditation to cure.
Pranayama meditation has significant benefits to health. It is a wonderful therapy for obesity; will write about it in the future. It is impressive that a monk in India is motivating millions of people to do pranayama. He claims that this has helped lakhs of people with health; I find the claim credible.
Hardly anyone gets refreshed by going to a hospital for a week or two. But, one feels refreshed from a stay in a genuine ayurveda resort.
It is an unfortunate situation that modern elite education of India makes people blind to the wisdom of Indian sages. Indian sages are the most intelligent people to have walked on the surface of earth. People are more open to a surgery than trying a noninvasive ayurvedic therapy for a month to see if it works. Somehow, I am having a hard time convincing my nearest and dearest friends and family of this. They believe more in a television reporter who contradicts himself in two days.
Sincerely,
Sudhakar
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Dr. Sudhakar Govindavajhala
IIT 1997-2001
Princeton 2001-2006
Hi Sudhakar,
ReplyDeleteEvery medicine practice has its own place. It is for patient to try out and see what works for them. Unfortunately time is never enough. Better to get treatments that are fast acting when dealing with cancer. If one has a sickness where there is unlimited time then they can try Ayurveda and might even get some benefit.
In the past people in India had very low life expectancy so chances of meeting Mr Cancer was very low. Those who might have been unfortunate might have been lucky to see any kind of doctor. It is true even now. I doubt any Ayurveda doctors in the past would have come across many patients with cancer so they can come up with a cure. Also the food being eaten now by the people is very different from that eaten by people in the past.
Do you have examples of Ayurveda patients being cured of cancer? Steve jobs did try alternate medicines and unfortunately did not survive. He would have been better off getting modern treatment and would have seen the launch of iWatch. I doubt Ayurveda has cured someone of small pox, cholera, plague and other fast acting diseases.
I have seen stroke victims able to walk after getting Ayurveda treatment. Now a days patients with severe pain are resorting to marijuana to relieve pain. This will work very well when a patient is going through Chemo. That is some kind of Ayurveda treatment for sure which I doubt many will agree with me.
Terminally ill cancer patients should resort to experimental drugs and practices to give future patients a chance to fight this battle with cancer. Resorting to Ayurveda medicines and not fighting will not be the best option. One close friend of mine was left to be dead but went to be the first person in Sweden to be treated with Chemo and has lived a healthy life since he got cured of cancer.
In Kaliyuga, Bhakti yoga is the way to go this works very well with modern times. Gita has whole bunch of information on this topic was written for this specific purpose. One can sit in a spot and chant or be devoted to their activities and benefit from Bhakti yoga. A doctor doing a 30 hr shift is definitely practicing Bhakti Yoga if he/she is devoted to the work instead of complaining about the long shift. Meditation is very difficult to practice and was part of Jnana Yoga. Spiritual leaders have moved on from it long time ago.
Kerala has many Ayurveda hospital. Maybe the Ujjain scholar can make a trip there to see how different hospitals operate. In my family we have used lot of Ayurveda treatments starting with buying herbs and roots on Ayurveda doctor's advice and boiling etc. but haven't seen any benefit of it.
Best regards,
Jedi