Ayurveda and Metabolic Diseases: The Whole is Greater than the Sum of the Parts

Metabolic diseases are on the rise globally. Ayurveda identifies a large cluster of metabolic diseases as Prameha . Type 2 diabetes (T2DM) is considered as a metabolic abnormality and an advanced stage of Prameha . Therefore, this chapter deals with T2DM as a part of a cluster of metabolic diseases. International agencies have realized the complexity of these diseases and joined hands to curb the rising incidence of metabolic diseases. Recent advances in physiology reveal cross-communication between organs like liver, muscle, pancreatic α- and β-cells, adipose tissue, gut, kidney, and brain via mediators like macrophages, adipocytokines, neuropeptides, and catecholamines. Together they form a complex network that is increasingly appreciated as systems biology. Positive harmony of this system is health. Negative triggers induced by environment, stress, overeating, and lack of exercise leads us from health to disease. In the pathophysiology of metabolic disease inflammation precedes insulin resistance. Therefore, in the first decade of the 20 th century, drug development programs identified significant secondary messengers mediating inflammation and insulin resistance. Then drugs were developed to modulate those single targets and to subsequently improve the glycemic control. However, the strategy to modulate single targets had limited success. Dietary supplements that have herbal ingredients or herbal drugs, referred to as herbals, brought to modern medicine by great traditions like Ayurveda and Traditional Chinese Medicine, have proved their potential in observational studies with lower statistical power. However, lack of reproducible raw material, unidentified mechanisms of action, and limited studies on larger populations haunt the dicovery of herbal drugs. Ayurveda has much more to deliver than a library of herbals. It is a way of life and has a fully developed science of diagnosis. Unlike the drug development programs, the wisdom of Ayurveda focuses on improvement of human health. System- Ayurveda poster 2010 connects the wisdom points in Ayurveda . Based on this poster, newer studies are being developed and propagated by the Department of AYUSH, Government of India. These collaborative multicentric molecular epidemiology studies will use the wisdom of Ayurveda to identify an individual from health to disease. We believe such strategies that focus of human health will contribute in developing protocols for preventing the rising incidence of metabolic disease.