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