There seems to be a vertical division among #medtwitterindia about Ayurveda. One group derides Ayurveda altogether, and jump to lable other modern practitioners as if they are endorses of quackery. But there are good many who want an evidence based approach sans prejudice.

Just rubbishing Ayurveda because it is rooted in ancient India and calling everything ancient useless is wrong. The modern medicine evolved because it believed more in results than traditions. It challenged traditions. It dared to correct itself.

This process has been the main reason we progressed in form of decreased general mortality, decreased debility and prolonged survival in the last century.

My notion is getting too fixated with a particular ‘pathy’ is like being traditionalist again. In all pathies Human body is the same, anatomy and physiology is the same irrespective of the treatment. What differs is the theory of genesis and treatment of the disease.

But keeping theory frozen for ages will be counterproductive; it should be reinvented and tailored to present needs. Firm belief in a theory is human nature, but dynamicity and correction is the need of the hour.

When a drug is produced for any disease, before the first human volunteer is given any drug it is registered, inspected and tests are done in lab and animal models for toxicity. This is a very important gatekeeper of safety function and is never bypassed.

When one says the drug works there should be adjustment for chance findings hence the p value, power of study and randomization all 3 are important.Also all patient characteristics and patient interventions should be matchable.

Mild diseases tend to resolve naturally hence we need a placebo control arm to remove this bias and the patient and doctors should not know that they are giving a placebo.

If all the following criteria (if not at least first 3) are met it doesn’t matter which ‘pathy’ it belongs to. Let all patients have the benefit but just make sure already laid down mechanisms which are tried and tested for years and validated are not side stepped.