Ayurvedamagazine

Category: AYURVEDA

  • Lakshmikutty Amma receives Padma Shri for traditional medicine practice

    Meet Lakshmikutty Amma, a 75-year-old woman from the Kallar forest area. She is well-known for practicing traditional medicine and has recently received the country’s fourth highest civilian honours Padma Shri Award for her breakthrough in practising traditional medicine.

    “I feel happy that my country accepted me. I haven’t felt happier. The District Collector called and informed me that I was selected for Padma Shri. I am in this field for last 50 years and the Kerala government recognized my work and awarded me as well. A few of the people had claimed that I would win the Padma Shri award,” says Lakshmikutty Amma.

    Amma also writes poems, dramas and is a teacher in folklore academy. She revealed that she got this knowledge from her mother who was a traditional midwife.

    She belongs to Kaani tribe and can remember more than 500 varieties of medicine. She has attained the education of 3rd form and knows Sanskrit.

    Amma, whose husband died two years back, stays alone in the forest and grows medicinal plants around her house. Her two sons passed away and the third one is working in the Railways.

    “My mother was also a traditional medicine practitioner. She was a midwife. My mother passed down the knowledge to me. I keenly watch the nature, it has all the remedies. Even animals and fish have medicinal power,” she added.

    However, Amma who has been awarded so many honours, lives in difficult circumstances.

    “There is no road to my home. It was approved in 1952, but the work hasn’t started till now,” she said.

    Amma said she hopes the government will consider it.

    “We have to travel many kilometres through the forest. There are wild animals including elephants. People cannot bring patients in time. Hence, I request the government to do something about it,” she added.

    Amma said that she can treat snake poison as well.

    “My son died due to snake poison, so I gained all the knowledge I could on it. When one is injected with poison it is important to suck it out at the earliest, but with no roads and no hospitals nearby, it is a dangerous issue in the village as we live amidst wild animals,” she said.

    Source: ANI

  • Ayurveda cures cancer patient

    Ayurveda proved the answer to Hari Nath, an Indian chemical engineer from New Zealand, whose immune system was wrecked by chemotherapy.

    This cancer patient was underweight by 20 kilograms and in a wheelchair when he travelled to India for a solution to the painful recurring throat ulcers he developed after being treated with intravenous chemotherapy for non-Hodgkins lymphoma.

    He said he tried everything modern medicine had to offer, including controversial drug thalidomide, at hospitals in Bangalore and Kerala, but nothing worked apart from high doses of the steroid prednisone, which worsened his diabetes, and left him prone to infection and in an emotional tailspin.

    “After a year of unsuccessful struggle and a life with pain killers and antidepressants, the feeling of hopelessness crept in and I googled to search for a naturally occurring steroid equivalent and stumbled across a herb called ashwagandha (witheria somnifera) used in Indian Ayurvedic medicine over thousands of years for improving immune system,” he said.

    Shortly after starting to take the herb, Mr Nath began to feel better.

    Within a week he was able to halve his steroid dose without the ulcers coming back, and a month later his blood tests began to show a remarkable improvement.

    Since then he’s discovered that clinical trials using ashwagandha to treat cancer patients were in progress in the United States and India, and patents pending in the US and Japan.

    “I had contacted the concerned head of clinical trials and was told that they had several positive feedbacks from cancer patients on ashwagandha,” he said.

    In November last year he was finally able to return home to New Plymouth and has been ulcer and cancer-free since.

    “Now I am hoping for a long remission and possibly a complete cure,” he said.

  • Dr. NPP Namboothiri, an Ayurveda doyen, breathes his last

    Known as a visionary in Ayurveda and a pioneer in ayurvedic ophthalmology, Dr. NPP Namboothiri passed away on 7th February 2018 in Koothattukulam. He was 68 and had been on treatment following an illness for the past few months. He is well-known as the brain behind Sreedhareeyam Ayurvedic Eye Hospital and Research Centre.  He is the son of renowned Ayurveda physician Brahmashri Parameswaran Namboothiri.

    After acquiring a professional qualification in Ayurveda, he was in government service for around 3 decades and during this period he made a name for himself as an Ayurvedic ophthalmologist. During his tenure, he was able to treat and cure many eye diseases that other medicinal methods had failed to cure. After retiring from the government service, Dr. NPP Namboothiri along with his elder brother Sri N P Narayanan Namboothiri laid foundation to Sreedhareeyam, the Ayurvedic Eye Hospital and Research Centre, in Nelliakkattu Mana

    Among his many national and international accolades were the Vocational Excellence Award for outstanding achievements in the field of Ayurvedic ophthalmology presented by Rotary International in 2002, Rashtriya Rattan Award for outstanding individual achievements and distinguished services to the nation conferred by the Global Economic Council in 2003 and the Pride of India award presented by the Global Economic Council in 2004. Namboothiri is survived by wife Jayasree P Namboothiri and children Dr Sreekala, Sreeraj, Dr Sreekanth and Sreedevi. The cremation was held on Wednesday evening with full state honours.

  • Documentary on Indian Ayurvedic Doctor

    Ayurveda is one of India’s cherished treasures troves for over decades. Many gurus of Ayurveda have taken efforts to spread this medical system globally. One such guru is Dr. Vasant Lad whose efforts in taking Ayurveda globally has been finally recognised. As a mark of recognition of his efforts, he has been accepted as the first person to bring Ayurveda from India to the US most successfully and feature-length documentary “The Doctor From India,” has been made on him in the US. This documentary is  directed by Jeremy Frindel and is a fascinating story of Lad’s mission to bring the ancient healthcare system of wellness from India to the West in the late ‘70s. It is now acquired by Zeitgeist Films and Kino Lorber, reports Deadline.

    In this meditative, immersive portrait, with interviewees, including Indian American author and Ayurvedic practitioner Deepak Chopra, Frindel documents the life and work of Lad who, fulfilling his destiny as foretold by his family guru, became a holistic health pioneer, helping to bring Ayurveda, which was almost unknown when he first arrived in the West, to become one of the most prominent alternative health systems in the world today.

    A native of India, Lad was a professor of clinical medicine at the Pune University College of Ayurvedic Medicine for 15 years. He holds a bachelor’s degree in Ayurvedic medicine and surgery from the University of Pune and a master’s degree in Ayurvedic science from Tilak Ayurved Mahavidyalaya. Lad’s academic and practical training include the study of Allopathy (western medicine) and surgery as well as traditional Ayurveda.

    In 1984, Lad founded The Ayurvedic Institute in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Since 1986, the institute has been based in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and Lad serves as the director of the institute.

    Lad has written 11 books on Ayurveda as well as hundreds of articles and other writings. With over 500,000 copies of his books in print in the U.S., his work has been translated into more than 20 languages.

  • Himachal CM Seeks Ayurveda Treatment in Kerala

    The 83-year-old Himachal Pradesh chief minister, Virbhadra Singh along with his wife Pratibha Singh arrived at Athreya Ayurvedic Centre in Pallom near Kottayam on December 1; 2017. According to the chief physician of the centre, Dr. Girish, the CM will spend over 10 days at the centre. The seasoned politician, who is also a long time diabetic patient agreed to follow the hospital protocol when it comes to food preferences. The only demand made by the CM was that he wanted to stay at a hospital with the ambience of a resort and run by a traditional family of Ayurveda practitioners. He had earlier stayed at this centre in 2008 for three weeks as part of treatment.

    Since the CM comes under the Z plus category, the state police is providing security at the resort.

  • Ayurveda’s ‘Punsawan Vidhi’, claims sex determination of child

    Ayurveda treatments have seen many controversies in the past due to its unscientific approach and ‘Punsawan Vidhi’ is one such controversy that it is currently battling with.

    Ayurveda experts say that Punsawan Vidhi claims to determine the sex of a child through an intervention in the early months of pregnancy.  “The system very much exists in Ayurveda. We help parents through this process if they seek assistance,”  says Ayurveda practitioner Dr Rachna Jain.

    ‘Punsawan Vidhi’ is a process where an Ayurvedic concoction is poured through the nostril of a woman in the first month of pregnancy. It is claimed that if the medicine is poured in the right nostril, she will conceive a boy, and a girl if it’s in the left. India’s laws are strict on sex determination, but this practice perhaps falls in a grey area. And faith seems to be the driving factor rather than scientific proof.
    “At a time when people opt for one child, we help them decide on the sex of their children through the knowledge of Ayuveda,” said Jain, who is a professor of swasth vritta and yoga at a city-based private Ayush college. ‘Punsawan Vidhi’ has raised eyebrows and was also pulled off the syllabus in some Ayurveda colleges.

    National spokesman for Ayush Medical Association, Dr Rakesh Pandey, said, “In present times, the focus should be on birth of a healthy child. We need to adhere to the law than to determine sex of the child.”

    Earlier, executive committee of theCentral Council of Indian Medicine (CCIM) upheld the teaching of ‘Punsawan Vidhi’. The committee stated, “We don’t agree to the removal of ‘Punsawan Vidhi’ from the syllabus of various Ayurveda courses since it is an integral part of Charak Samhita.”

  • Coimbatore AVP formulates policies to globalise Ayurveda Research and Education

    Policies are being formulated by International scientists and experts from the AryaVaidya Pharmacy and Research Foundation to globalise and standardise Ayurveda research and education across countries. According to P R Krishnakumar, head, AVP group of institutions, the outcome of the meeting would be given to the government for further developments.

    It is understood that the group had been leading important research and education activities in Ayurveda in India and abroad for over seven decades. He added that Ayurveda is one of the few traditional medical systems with written manuscripts and documents unlike others.AVP has also been involved with National Institutes of Health (NIH), USA for scientific evaluation of Ayurveda.

    “This was done in collaboration with the University of Los Angeles, California and University of Washington, Seattle. The study proved that scientific validation of Ayurvedic clinical practices is possible with contemporary medicine”.“AVP inked a research agreement with Latvia University and the Ministry of AYUSH to facilitate research on diabetes. Extensive studies are planned in diabetes including regional collaboration with the Avinashilingam University here to study Ayurvedic Diabetic wound management in collaboration with an European University.”

    “The foundation has, in association with Molecular Diagnostics, Counselling Care and Research Centre, Coimbatore and the University of Milano, Italy undertaken a study on management of Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy (a rare disease condition that reduces the life expectancy of affected individuals to just 26 years) through Ayurveda.”“The institute’s MoU with Latvia University facilitated implementation of a short term course there, and helped in establishment of clinics in Latvia, Sweden, Turkey, Hungary, Slovenia, Estonia, Germany, Bulgaria and Serbia.”

    AVP group has established medical facilities in Malysia and Singapore.

  • P.K. Warrier is 96

    Aryavaidyan P K Warrier, the doyen of Ayurveda, who took Kottakkal Arya Vaidya Sala to global fame celeberated his 96th birthday on May 25th at Kottakkal. In commemoration of Dr. Warrier’s birthday, his disciple Dr K Muraleedharan released a book on Ayurveda. The book, Ayurvedam: Arivum Anubhavavum is a collection of essays by Dr. Muraleedharan. Warrier spent an hour at a special function held at Kottackal Arya Vaidya Sala attented by an elite crowd.

    Dr. Warrier shared many interesting anecdotes in which practitioners of this traditional medicine made remarkable achievements in their treatments. He called upon doctors to treat patients with their heart.

  • International Ayurveda Research institute to be setup in Kannur

    An approval has been given for the proposed international Ayurveda research institute in Kannur by the State Cabinet. The proposed project will be implemented with the financial assistance of the State and central governments. This is expected to cross Rs. 300 crore.

    This institute is expected to be completed in the 13th Plan period. It aims to promote researches linking Ayurveda with biotechnology and will ensure global standards to ayurvedic medicines. The institute will located in a location identified by the Revenue Department.

    According to officials, a detailed project report for this has already been prepared and the cabinet has entrusted the responsibility for executing the project to the director of National Ayush Mission.

  • Herbal formulation for liver cancer

    Weeds growing in wastelands usually miss our attention. Here’s one such weed that has proved to be a potent cure for liver cancer.

    This weed known as Manithakkali in Malayalam has been proved by scientists from four major institutes as having a remarkable efficacy in treating liver cancer. It has been reported that a compound called Solanum nigrum, derived from the leaves of this plant is the agent that is known to fight liver cancer.

    Continuous evaluation has found that this compound is 10 times more effective than Sorafenib, which is the drug that is used currently for treating hepatocellular carcinoma. These finding have been published in a journal of the Nature group.

    This plant also known as Black nightshade is widely used in traditional medicine for various ailments such as inflammation, jaundice, bronchitis, asthma, leprosy and skin disorders.

    The plant was found to be a rich source of anticancer molecules which does not have any noticeable side-effects. The research was conducted by a team of scientists from Rajiv Gandhi Centre for Biotechnology, National Institute for Interdisciplinary Science and Technology (NIIST), Government Medical College, Thiruvananthapuram, and the National Chemical Laboratory, Pune.