ayurveda and metals

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Dear Friends of Ayurveda in ,

hello! Please find enclosed this article as well for your kind reference.

Sincerely

Dr.Akhilesh sharma

www.ayurvedatoday.org

 

JAMA study on herbals a propaganda to malign Ayurveda: Experts

 

Thursday, December 23, 2004 08:00 IST

P B Jayakumar, Chennai

 

Some of the Ayurvedic experts feel a recent report published in the Journal

of the American Medical Association (JAMA) accusing Indian Ayurvedic drugs

having high toxic metal content, as part of a conscious effort of the

western world and multinational pharmaceutical companies to malign the

growing popularity of Indian Ayurveda.

 

The study, done by Harvard Medical School, Boston, and now available in the

latest edition of JAMA, was to determine the prevalence and concentration of

heavy metals in Ayurvedic herbal medicine product (HMPs) manufactured in

South Asia and sold in Boston-area stores and to compare estimated daily

metal ingestion with regulatory standards. The study concluded that one of 5

Ayurvedic HMPs produced in South Asia contains potentially harmful levels of

lead, mercury or arsenic above permissible levels, and it said users of

Ayurvedic medicine may be at risk for heavy metal toxicity, and testing of

Ayurvedic HMPs for toxic heavy metals should be mandatory.

 

Sources accuse the study itself was primarily pre-planned to attack the

Indian Ayurvedic medicine manufacturers. Quoting from the JAMA article, they

note the study team identified the products for their study by searching

only online Yellow Pages using the categories markets, supermarkets and

convenience stores and business names containing the word India, Indian

cities, and Indian words. An online national directory of Indian grocery

stores, a South Asian community business directory, and a newspaper were

also searched to identify the products. If that is the case, why this study

on South Asian Ayurvedic products is silent on the herbal products

manufactured by other South Asian countries? ask the sources.

 

"It is absolute nonsense by saying majority of Ayurvedic drugs have high

level of toxic metal content. It is true that Ayurveda, a time tested stream

of medicine uses metals like mercury, iron and other metals, especially the

bhasmas manufactured by the North India Ayurvedic manufacturers. For example

'Chayilyam', used in treating diseases like psoriasis, has mercury content.

But Ayurvedic texts, based on which the drugs are being manufactured for

over 4000 years, clearly elaborate the treatment process for preparing the

medicines to remove the toxicity and purify the metal as a medicine" notes

Ajay Varghese, Director, Bipha Drugs, Kottayam.

 

"These kind of studies stem from the fact that so far we have not been able

to convince the western world with the dossiers of each classical

formulations and its manufacturing process, various toxicology and

pharmacokinetic studies. This has to be done, though Ayurveda is clinically

proven for many centuries," says Dr Joy Varghese, Advisor (Ayurveda), KINFRA

of the Kerala Government.

 

He notes that many of the herbal ingredients have metal content, like

Tinosphora Cortifolia (popularly called as Chittamrithu) having mercury

content, but it acts as a mercury scavenger in the body. Same is the case

with 'Gowripashanam' having Arsenic Suplhate content. The purification

process cause creation of free radicals to remove the toxicity and turn the

metal content as a medicine. Therefore the prevalence of toxic metals in

Ayurvedic medicines need not be interpreted as the metals have harmful toxic

properties, elaborates Dr Joy Varghese.

 

They also pint out that Siddha, one among the main genres of ISMs, is mainly

based on metallurgy.