A leading Pune-based urologist often used ayurvedic herbs and kshara (salts obtained by incineration of herbs) along with the regular synthetic drugs that he prescribed for kidney-related problems. He documented this integrated treatment and its benefits, eventually obtaining a patent for these herbal combinations.

Similarly, a neurologist in Bengaluru got his patients to undergo shirodhara (an ayurvedic therapy) in combination with treatment using modern medicine to treat neurological disorders like seizures, severe insomnia, chronic fatigue syndrome and migraine.

Over the last decade, doctors have begun to discuss integrated healthcare and medicine where patients are given medicines of both traditional and modern systems. In fact, times have changed from when I used to get thrown out of a physician’s chambers for asking them to study ayurvedic products for their efficacy and safety. These days, a number of requests come in from physicians wanting to know what a Vaidya (Ayurveda practitioner) would have used for a particular disease. More research publications are reporting results of studies using contemporary chemical and biological science tools on ayurvedic products and herbs.

And yet, when ayurvedic vaidyas use diagnostic tools and record details to interpret and corroborate ayurvedic dashavidha pareeksha or the “10-fold examination” to diagnose disease and prescribe drugs, they are criticised by certain lobbies of doctors practising modern medicine. Unfortunately such criticism is also holding back qualified MBBS physicians from documenting the outcomes of ayurvedic products they may have prescribed.Read more

Source web page :The Hindu Business line