Ayurveda survives test of time

Ayurveda survives test of time

The growing popularity of Ayurveda in India is matched by its
enormous growth overseas.

Delhi-based Jiva Ayurveda was the first company to offer
Ayurvedic consultations with qualified doctors and sell courses
and medicines over the Internet. It has more than 150,000
customers in 100 countries.

According to marketing manager Yuvraj Agarwal, more than
25,000 people visit their website each month and the company's
research indicates that the global market for Ayurveda is growing
by about 25 percent yearly.

However a number of obstacles stands in the way to wider
acceptance of Ayurveda overseas, where the products tend to be
classified as food supplements.

Inadequate testing of products is one problem as the growth in
demand has let to unlicensed manufacturers and a mail order
business which is hard to police.

Earlier this month a scandal surrounding a Harvard Medical
School study which found toxic levels of heavy metals in
Ayurvedic medicine in the U.S. dealt a heavy blow to the
industry's reputation.

More than 750,000 Americans are believed to have used
Ayurvedic medicines to date and some Indian press reports
suggested trickery by multinational pharmaceutical companies
intent on halting the lucrative traditional medicine sector from
eating into their sales figures.

In an interview, Taradatt, Government of India Joint Secretary
for Health at the Department of Ayurveda, Yoga and Naturopathy,
Unani, Sidha and Homeopathy, complained that Western countries
tend to discriminate against Ayurveda.

He said the countries keep refusing to recognize it despite
the Indian government's stringent checks and extensive research
on its safety and effectiveness.

But he recognized that the biggest challenge to the growth of
the therapy came from within India itself.

"The biggest opposition to Ayurveda is from allopathic
(Western medicine) practitioners and companies manufacturing
their drugs here," he said, stressing the need for further
clinical trials and recognition of the therapy abroad.

With an estimated 45 million Americans without any form of
medical health insurance, rising healthcare and pharmaceutical
costs worldwide, plus the growing demand for "back to nature"
therapies, some estimates place the potential market for
traditional medicine globally at about US$62 billion.

International recognition of "the science of life" as a health
care system on a par with Western medicine may be some way off,
but in the land of its birth people are looking at the bigger
picture.

"The fact that Ayurveda has been used here for thousands of
years without much support from government or big companies and
has still stood the test of time -- that speaks volumes for its
popularity and effectiveness," said Taradatt.

"Thirty years back, people in the West did not know what yoga
was, and today it is practiced in almost every home in the U.S."

-- David Kennedy