AYURVEDA PHARMACOLOGY

 

Ayurveda says nature itself is medicine; meaning anything found in our surroundings can be used as medicines. Contrary to popular belief ayurveda is not 100% herbal-vegetarian medicine. Apart from herbs ayurvedic medicines include minerals, metals, milk and other animals products too. In Ayurveda the demarcation of food and medicine is very thin. A food item, especially spices, can be used as food and vice versa.

But how do physicians understand their actions in our body? The solution is simple,

Ayurveda pharmacology is based on two simple principles, one is categorizing all medicines based on their potency (heating or cooling potency) and secondly by the relationship between taste and doshas.

There are six tastes

• sweet

• sour

• salty

• bitter

• pungent

• astringent

Intake of food or medicine with dominance of one or more taste influence the increase or decrease of respective doshas; for example sweet items always increase kapaha, pungent increase pitta and bitter & astringent increase vata. Along with this, potency of a material too has an effect on doshas. All the medicines of Ayurveda act by these basic priniciples.

Apart from this our daily activities also influence doshas; a sedentary lifestyle, laid-back attitude and excess sleep definitely increase our kapha; on the other hand too much physical activities/exercises and lack of sleep can cause a spike in our vata dosha.

To cite an example; diabetes is mostly caused by excess intake of sweet items, lack of exercises and body's inability to utilize glucose for energy generation, so it is not surprising that most medicine prescribed for diabetes are bitter or astringent in nature. (Ayurveda has limitation in treating type 1 diabetes though)

As mentioned earlier a harmony of doshas are responsible for health and their imbalance leads to diseases.

So next time when you take excess of garlic or chillies in your food; lookout for increased pitta, you become hot; literally