The type of diet, i.e., vegetarian and non-vegetarian, has always been in a perplexing state among health-seekers as well as health care professionals. Nevertheless, vegetarianism and veganism diets are growing rapidly in popularity not only because of perceived health benefits, but also because of social justice and sustainability concerns. Two recent studies of the health effects of vegetarian diets reported conflicting results: the EPIC-Oxford study reported a significant increase in strokes among vegetarians compared to meat-eaters among a predominantly Caucasian cohort, while another, performed on Taiwanese Buddhists, reported significantly lower incidence of strokes among vegetarians. This was doubly puzzling given the pronounced decrease in cardiovascular events among the EPIC-Oxford group. In this article, we make a detailed comparison of the actual dietary intake of various food groups by the cohorts in these studies. We then use the nutritional principles of Ayurveda—traditional Indian medicine—to show how these apparently contradictory results may be explained. Systems of traditional medicine, such as Ayurveda, possess profound knowledge of the effects of food on physiology. Ayurveda extensively describes the effects of different foods on the body’s physiology, including meats and other non-vegetarian foods, which it actively recommends in certain conditions. Looking at the dietary intakes reported in this study from an Ayurvedic perspective is therefore informative. Ayurveda takes into account not just the type of food, but also multiple other factors such as taste, temperature, and time of consumption. Traditional cuisines have evolved hand in hand with such systems of medicine to optimise nutrition in the context of local climate and food availability. Harnessing the experiential wisdom of these traditional systems to create an integrative nutrition science would help fight the ongoing epidemic of chronic lifestyle diseases and improve health and wellness. Hence, Ayurveda is a promising weapon against chronic disease. Its extensive experience with holistic nutrition, together with that of other traditional systems of medicine, should be harnessed to create an integrative nutrition science to promote health and well-being.
Author(s)
Details
Archana
Purushotham
Department of Neurology, Baylor College of Medicine & Michael
E. DeBakey VA Medical Center, Houston, TX 77030, USA.
Alex
Hankey
School of Biology, Faculty of Science, MIT World Peace University,
Pune 411038, Maharashtra, India.
Please
see the book here:- https://doi.org/10.9734/bpi/msraa/v7/5665
