Guest guest Posted March 22, 2004 Report Share Posted March 22, 2004 You make a good point Todd. Turmeric is routinely used by Indians in cooking. Some even use Neem for brushing their teeth in addition !! Yet, the poulation is over a billion !!!!! Durgesh Mankikar, MD Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted March 23, 2004 Report Share Posted March 23, 2004 Dr Bhate originally pointed out that it was the combo of turmeric and honey together that has the contraceptive effect. We cannot say taking honey in the morning and turmeric in the noon is its equivalent. It is an interesting thoery, perhaps it could be substantiated with animal studies though it does sound very hard to believe. Most indians do use turmeric in cooking but not with honey. IN fact honey must not be cooked otherwise it will contribute to AMA (BTW that also stands for the American Medical Association, a strange coincidence LOL). Are there any techniques for contraception in Ayurveda? If there are, would it also lead to depletion of ojas? -yogaman ayurveda, durgesh mankikar <d_mankikar> wrote: > You make a good point Todd. > Turmeric is routinely used by Indians in cooking. > Some even use Neem for brushing their teeth in addition !! > Yet, the poulation is over a billion !!!!! > > Durgesh Mankikar, MD Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted March 24, 2004 Report Share Posted March 24, 2004 On Wednesday, March 24, 2004, at 06:36 AM, ayurveda wrote: > Message: 5 > Tue, 23 Mar 2004 20:46:28 -0000 > "childofdevi" <childofdevi > Re: turmeric and conception > > Dr Bhate originally pointed out that it was the combo of turmeric and > honey together that has the contraceptive effect. We cannot say > taking honey in the morning and turmeric in the noon is its > equivalent. It is an interesting thoery, perhaps it could be > substantiated with animal studies though it does sound very hard to > believe. > > Most indians do use turmeric in cooking but not with honey. IN fact > honey must not be cooked otherwise it will contribute to AMA (BTW > that also stands for the American Medical Association, a strange > coincidence LOL). > > Are there any techniques for contraception in Ayurveda? If there are, > would it also lead to depletion of ojas? > > -yogaman My comments are not directed to Dr. Bhate on any personal basis and he knows I am sure that I welcome his experiences and knowledge, particularly that of the tribal peoples in India that have many uses for Ayurvedic herbs that aren't specifically known or at least discussed in Ayurveda. While honey has the capacity to change or modify the activity of a herb, I can't really see that it would affect the contraceptive activity of turmeric. My intent is to caution any enthusiastic adherents on this list (and there some on every list), that are willing to use themselves as guinea pigs, sometimes without fully understanding the implications of their actions. In the best scenario, child-making should be a conscious act, not an accident. Contraception isn't discussed in the major texts on Ayurveda - generally speaking, children were desired. Its only the recent population pressures (since colonialism) that have created a need for contraceptive strategies. As for honey being cooked, I think this entirely depends on the honey. I have used clover, buckwheat and dandelion honey in teas, to make syrups etc. for many years without ill effect. This also is the experience of many who didn't previously know or understand the traditional Ayurvedic contraindication who have similarly observed no ill effects, for e.g. the Chinese physicians, who literally barbequed licorice coated in honey as a treatment for respiratory problems. If you search the archives, you will see that I have already discussed the issue of honey toxicity at some length. While India has a long history of various traditions, it also has maintained a tradition of free inquiry. Just because something is stated to be so in the ancient literature, it doesn't mean that it is true, no how ancient or venerable the tradition. Sometimes its difficult to determine of ancient claims, as it is not uncommon in various cultures for more recent commentators to adopt the name of a more well-known or venerable author to enhance the legitimacy of their text. Given the Charaka samhita comes to us in damaged form, it is difficult to even be sure that everything in this text is the original and true teaching of Bharadvaja. Each of us should examine the nature of truth for ourselves. Caldecott phyto http://www.wrc.net/phyto Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted March 24, 2004 Report Share Posted March 24, 2004 > > Hence, efficacy as an antifertility spice need not be even thought. > In most of home remedies Turmeric quantity does not exceed a pinch or > two, ie. 250 mg maximum (One pinch is 125 mg). For contraceptive > action, one should take 1 tsp, ie. Approx. 2.5 gms per dose with only > honey. once again, I personally have used this dosage as an infusion in female patients with no demonstrable effect in the menstrual cycle; my colleagues have used higher doses, and none have reported this effect to me, and nowhere is it written whether or not ovulation has occurred is difficult to tell, and would either require basal/body temperature charts or salivary/blood testing to check for progsterone levels many texts indicate normal dosages of up to 4 g for turmeric, which is at least one teaspoon e.g. Williamson, Elizabeth ed. 2002. Major Herbs of Ayurveda. London: Churchill Livingstone a book compiled by the Dabur Research Foundation, which apart from whatever one thinks of Dabur products (sub-optimal in my opinion), has access to the available data in India, English, Hindi or otherwise it is something of a well-known, demonstrable fact in herbal medicine that herbs used as foods like turmeric, garlic, ginger etc. have a large therapeutic window, and such herbs are generally recognized as safe and tend not to have an antifertility property this doesn't mean to say that they don't have medicinal properties, but in the case of ovulation/conception, if the mechanism isn't directly hormonal, then a contraceptive activity would have to have some kind of toxic-like effect that tells the body that the environment isn't favorable to child-rearing; it might not be actually "toxic," but "tricks" the body into thinking such > This is ten times culinary spice dose. That too, only for day > 1 to 8, on empty stomach. The actions may be different. What is known > from tribals is that the dose produces intense antiseptic environment > in the reproductive system, that ovum becomes ineffective. with all due respect, "what is known" so far is an unsubstantiated hypothesis based on anecdotal evidence but let me be clear: are you recommending to people on this list that they should use turmeric as per your recommendations as a contraceptive, or simply mentioning this for academic interest? > >> The petroleum ether, alcoholic and aqueous extracts of rhizomes of >> Curcuma longa inhibited fertility when administered by gavage on days >> 1-7 of pregnancy at doses of 100 or 200 mg/kg to female albino rats. >> Studies in rabbits indicated doses of up to 200 mg/kg of the extracts >> did not produce anti-ovulatory effects (Garg, 1974). >> If we extrapolate the to humans (based on weight) a minimum effective >> dose would be 11,000 mg, or about 2 tsp. > > This comparison between rats and humans is not needed, since human > trial results in terms of experience are available. if they are available I cannot find them reviewed in any text I am familiar with, on PubMed (a database of most journals published worldwide), or in journals like the IJP - granted, there are several journals outside the scope of PubMed, especially non-English ones (although English remains the most prominent language even in India for peer-reviewed research). If human clinical trials demonstrating the efficacy of turmeric as a contraceptive exist please supply us with a citation. > Secondly ayurveda > progressed without any dissections, clinical trials, but where is it mentioned in any nighantu that turmeric inhibits fertility? do you have a textual source for this? tribal practices cannot be equated with Ayurveda per se. > > Nowadays many clinical trial results are written by Ghostwriters on > the payroll of drug companies (drugawareness.com). These trials are > nothing but sales efforts in a disguise. Seconndly, most of the > synthetic medicines are produced by analysing the herbs and trying to > separate the significant chemicals responsible for healing action. > Idea is to prepare the same molecule synthetically to earn a patent. > Herbal medicines cant get one a patent, since they are natures gift, > proven by experience. In many such cases, herbal combination remained > more effective than the separated chemicals. A notable case is the > Parkinson medicine, where a western mutinational carried out trials > in India. The project got abandoned after the above experience. yes there is corruption in science, but I hope you are not, by implication, suggesting that there are no corrupt Ayurvedic physicians - anyway, this would not conform to my experience as I met several that could be accused of charlatanism yes science has its limitations, but it can be an important validating tool I've often stated that if science were to turn its huge myopic eye to examine our shared human heritage instead inventing new technologies that don't have the weight of empirical evidence as found in Ayurveda, we'd all be far better off but in the case of contraceptive activity, science is adequately furnished with the tools to determine this activity i.e. there is either a contraceptive activity or there is not; you can argue with the interpretations, but not with the raw data if turmeric inhibits human fertility lets see the data, not just folklore as a father of 3, child-rearing isn't something to gamble with a polemic against science is not a suitable argument best wishes... Caldecott phyto http://www.wrc.net/phyto Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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