was having a conversation/debate with a person on the net. the same can be extended here
http://sabupaul.wordpress.com/2011/02/15...omment-381
check out the comments section.
manu on January 5, 2012 at 12:26 am said:
i have seen a people with cancer,arthritis being cured by ayurveda. at the same time i have seen my friend’s mother die due to chemo.
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sabupaul on January 5, 2012 at 6:16 am said:
To validate a system of medicine properly blinded and controlled studies need to be undertaken. If you know of any such studies published in reputed peer reviewed journal please post them here. Your friend’s mother died because of cancer. Don’t say that chemotherapy killed her.
I am not a big fan of anecdotal evidence. But, here goes. A few of my relatives have arthritis. They have to date spent huge amounts of money on Ayurveda and a lot of other “alternative medicines” and had to put up with endless pain and fluctuating intensity. Finally, they saw a rheumatologist and were put on a low dose Methotrexate course and all of them are doing well and able to lead a normal active life without the need for elaborate treatments. Some of them might have to get their knee joints replaced because they delayed getting proper treatment by sticking to ayurveda.
You are not looking at the big picture and using a few cases that you have heard of to judge a system of medicine. For a more detailed explanation I would like to recommend
http://www.quackwatch.org to you.
Thanks for the comment!
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manu on January 5, 2012 at 11:57 am said:
why would you want to base your faith on peer reviewed journals(that too only the reputed ones wjile ignoring the rest) to know about the efficacy of ayurvedic medicines even if there is a statistically significant evidence of its efficacy.
a few reasons for the scarcity of the evidence of ayurvedic medicines in the international peer reviewed journals are:
1) the medicines/system of treatment would lie outside the domain of many of these journals and hence would be unfit for publication.
2) the pharma lobby is very powerful and would like to patent its own versions of many of these formulations. it also wouldn’t like to see stuff published outside the realm of allopathic medicines/system of treatment
funny that you mention arthritis, because it is one area where ayurvedic system scores over the rest. one can always change the ayurvedic doctor if one isn’t observing beneficial results. also chemo is one of the biggest killers of patients throughout the world. wonder why that it is still in use.
regarding anecdotal evidence my father was suffering with fungus on his body for the past 6 years and has visited numerous dermatologists. however after undergoing treatment with ayurvedic oils/medicines for about 2 months his fungus vanished.
regarding peer reviewed papers, even if someone where to present them here, you would say that the evidence is being pushed by the government of india to pursue its own interests or that the efficacy has still not been confirmed. but anyhow here are a few papers and sites
http://www.ijaronline.com/
this journal has a number of papers.(but i’m guessing you may not agree to them since they are from GOI). in fact many of the papers listed are actually very interesting.
http://www.springerlink.com/content/j044088768k48700/
http://informahealthcare.com/doi/abs/10....22.10.1.87
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/art...410500228X
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/art...0X00003294
here are also some evidences
http://www.girijasanjeevani.com/casestudies.htm
http://www.toxicologycentre.com/English/gallery.html
http://ayurveda-cancer.org/case2.htm
hope you would look at these evidence with an open mind, even if you believe/don’ty believe in ayurveda.
thanks bye.
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manu on January 7, 2012 at 7:15 pm said:
i actually didn’t read the full article when i wrote my previous comments(i just read the title and figured out it would be the similar to the other ramblings that have been floating around on the net). now that i’ve read it there is nothing new in the write up. poorly written and the same rehashing of stuff floating around on the net.
regarding the stuff about heavy metals, i’ve applied a medicine containing heavy metal(copper sulphate aka tutha) on my eyes(along with the intake of medicine triphalaadi churna), and i have been able to reduce the power in my eyes from -1.0 to -.25 after applying for around 2 months. i may even end up with 20/20 vision after a few months. i’ve also taken a powder(navayasa churna) containing 50% by weight iron filing. i haven’t suffered any sort ailments at all nor have i been blinded by the copper sulphate in the medicine. instead i have been blessed with much improved eyesight.
very interesting article. oncology in ayurveda
http://www.scribd.com/doc/19224722/Onclolgy-in-Ayurveda
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