I write this post to seek inputs from intellectuals, medical professionals and create a debate on alternative approaches to medicine. It is wonderful to see that 40 million dollars has been raised for the ALS disease research via the IceBucketChallenge. I hope that some of it is used to explore alternative approaches.
Modern medicine is wonderful at bacterial infections, emergencies, surgeries, etc. However, there are lots of problems for which it just does not have any clue. The ALS disease is one such area.
Amyotrophic
lateral
sclerosis
(ALS), often referred to as "Lou Gehrig's Disease," is a progressive
neurodegenerative disease that affects nerve cells in the brain and the
spinal cord. I propose an alternative line of research towards this disease: leverage the understanding of traditional Indian medicine. Traditional Indian medicine is superior to modern medicine in dealing with Alzheimer's disease (read up on Alzheimer's prevention trust by Dr. Khalsa). It holds quite a lot of promise.
Modern medicine hardly pays any attention to one's inputs: what you eat, what you listen, what you read, what you watch, what you think. All these do indeed affect your health. For instance, most diseases come about because we eat when we are not hungry and drink when we are thirsty. The biggest mistake people make is suppression of their natural refreshment indicators. In fact, most of us overeat and overdrink way beyond our capacity resulting in overall reduction of health. The body itself has sufficient ability to cure itself of many diseases, if only we allow it. The interventionist nature of modern medicine, where business interests have overtaken the science, does not really help holistic healing.
The other thing modern medicine does not understand that the secret of being healthy is to be closer to the root of consciousness. The modern medical hospital environment with televisions for 15 hours a day is hardly allows one to focus on the root of consciousness and healing. The root of consciousness has unimaginable abilities to heal, if only we allow it.
Our body cells are polluted by the toxins in the environment. Modern medicine has not truly figurred out how to get the toxins out of the cells. If you can get toxins out of individual cells, all the other medical problems become much more tractable.Once the toxins are out of the cells, the normal process of cell regeneration can continue normally. All cells in our body die and are replaced by new cells. The estimates I have seen vary from 21 days to 2 years. So, if the toxins are out of the body, and individual cell's "intelligence"is restored, the normal process of cell regeneration will cure the so called (chronic) disease. Even for diseases like constriction of vessels, this approach provides a natural solution.
The traditional Indian medicinal system, called Ayurveda, does a wonderful job of addressing the above two items: inputs to body and detoxification. My wife and I lost about 6-10 pounds in three weeks at the Vaidyagrama Ayurveda resort due to strict diet control. Then, after sufficient preparation, they make you drink a large amount of herbal medicine and clarified butter (ghee). This gets digested and ingested into the bloodstream. They saturate the body with ghee. Then, they induce diarrhea to flush the fats out of the body. Besides the patient feeling more healthy, blood tests have shown that the overall fat content in the body goes down after the treatment.
I illustrate the Ayurvedic wisdom in another disease: hypertension. I forget the exact name of drug used. But this drug is a chemically manufactured compound to resemble a compound found in a nature of the bean. Ayurvedic remedy for hypertension is to eat the bean. The hypertension goes away without any side effects. The chemical drug causes lots of severe side effects in some people.
Thus, Ayurveda goes beyond palliative care. In fact, the Ayurvedic approach to diabetes is more convincing than the modern medical approach to diabetes, which is only disease management as opposed to a cure. Kindly read the articles listed below where I outline a chemical free medical approach for common chronic (non-bacterial) diseases such as psoriasis, spondylytis, etc.
Another interesting observation: In Ayurveda, they make you log your food and drink intakes. And then details about your excretion, including color and texture. This kind of discipline is missing in modern medical professionals. If anything, I have seen many doctors eat very unhealthily and live unhealthy lives. In truth, a number of doctors are very stressed. Some fail to adhere to Sun's clock, due to which patients' and doctors' melatonin clocks are confused resulting in higher risk and reduced health.
The other remarkable difference between Indian medical system and modern western sytem is the emphasis on eating freshly cooked meals (those cooked with love!). Somehow western medical doctors have been brainwashed into believing that industralization of food with all the chemicals does not affect health. Ayurveda recommends that food be consumed within three hours of cooking. Ayurveda does a better job of understanding the link between food, health, mindfulness and overall happiness and quality of life. In contrast, the emphasis in modern medicine is mostly on interventions to maximize the revenue. Somehow, modern hospitals are desensitized. The nurses are hardly effulgent in their charisma. On the other hand, the nurses in ayurveda hospital Vaidyagrama are much more effusing in their love and compassion.
I would like to credit HH Bhakti Charu Swami for convincing me to try Ayurveda. After a heart attack, once the emergency settled, he switched to Ayurveda successfully and told me of its benefits and side-effect free treatment. He communicated this to me in ten minutes. When he told me this, I was facing the serious prospect of a surgery needing to be redone (exact surgery repeat from five years ago). Now, the situation is much better; whole situation casused by anti-biotic side effects. I am now trying to convince my dad to try Ayurveda so he can get off the long-term side effects of the 9 pills a day he takes due to heart-attack.
HH Bhakti Charu Swami is working towards establishing a medical research center/hospital in Ujjain, India in collaboration with other hospitals to take this line of research forward.
I am raising money for a charity Yoga Foundation to research and espouse these ideas for future study and research; please donate (
link). We recently helped organize an event where 300 medical professionals attended a seminar in New Jersey to understand Ayurveda, traditional Indian medicine, can transform health care in America. The keynote speaker was CEO of Carrier Health, New Jersey.
Kindly read some write ups I have written on the subject below. I acknowledge that my ideas are half-baked. Please look beyond my errors and omissions.
My Review of Vaidyagrama hospital
Reviews of other people on Vaidyagrama
Profile of a person cured by Ayurveda from extreme allergy
Thoughts penned on the sad news of Mr. Jamie Dimon's cancer.
Catch 22 in cancer treatment
