Learn more about Ayurveda before you buy into it. Ana
 
Ayurveda, a healing tradition from India, is as old as the hills.
And apparently ayurvedic medicine available through the Internet
contains as many toxic metals as the hills, according to a study
published in the Journal of the American Medical Association.
A team from Boston University found that more than 20 percent of
nearly 200 samples of various ayurvedic cures contained dangerous
amounts of lead, arsenic and mercury. Sometimes the presence of metals
was a result of sloppy manufacturing; other times the metals were added
deliberately as part of the cure.
The authors — who are advocates of alternative medicine and include an ayurvedic practitioner as well as a lead poisoning
expert from India — said they hope their report can help separate wheat
from chaff, that is, the useful elements from the ayurvedic tradition
from the real whacky stuff.
Problems with ayurveda
India is proud of its ayurvedic tradition, which dates back over 7,000 years and likely predates Traditional Chinese Medicine.
By 1000 BCE, when Europeans were still living in mud and beating each
other with clubs, Indian doctors used the principles of ayurveda to
drain fluids, sew wounds, remove kidney stones and even perform
cosmetic surgery.
For the most part, the ayurvedic tradition — which incorporates yoga, meditation and diet — makes for a healthy lifestyle.
But the safety and efficacy of some ayurvedic cures are questionable, because often they incorporate chants and are based on astrology,
personality traits, pulse readings, a supposed imbalance of three
bodily humors (called vata, pitta and kapha, like China's yin and yang)
and other discredited beliefs. Your herbal cure for, say, a bad cough
might be different from the next person's as a result of your birthday
and Mars being aligned with Jupiter.
Among these odd elements of ayurveda, the JAMA report targets a
practice called rasa shastra, which uses mercury and other metals as
curatives. Nearly half of the rasa shastra remedies tested had dangers
levels of metals; several were 10,000 times over the U.S. safety limit.
Regardless whether you are a Leo or a Capricorn, that's not healthy.
So the authors called into question the entire practice of rasa shastra.
India strikes back
Some folks in India didn't take the JAMA report lightly. The Indian
Ministry of Health and Family Welfare issued a press release last week
that stated:
"It needs to be emphasized that as per the directions issued by
Department of AYUSH, herbo-metallic compounds are not being officially
exported because of heavy metal concerns and only purely herbal
Ayurveda, Unani and Siddha medicines are being exported from India with
effect from 1st January 2006 after certification of heavy metals below
the permissible limit by the manufacturing unit."
Read between the line, and this implies (a) herbo-metallic compounds
still exist in India as part of the ayurvedic tradition; (b)
herbo-metallic compounds are being unofficially exported; and (c) and
herbo-metallic compounds used to be exported until European and
American researchers exposed the practice.
The lead author on JAMA report, Robert Saper, was in fact one of the
pesky researchers in 2004 who revealed the fact that more than 20
percent of imported ayurvedic cures in Boston's South Asian grocery
stories had illegal levels of toxic metals.
Know your source
Ayurveda has gained popularity in the United States with promoters
such as Deepak Chopra, who charges thousands of dollars for seminars
about how ayurveda can improve your golf game. The tradition has become
somewhat elitist in the United States, with ayurvedic spas, soaps,
candles and other luxury items.
Many likely don't know nor want to know about the idiosyncrasies of
ayurveda. (We haven't addressed the use of cow urine and dung.)
Ayurveda, after all, has much going for it.
But when experimenting with traditional medicines, particularly when
you are outside of that culture, it's prudent to understand what you
are getting into. The Boston University team is one group of
alternative medicine advocates who want to legitimize useful ancient
therapies not because they are ancient but because they work.

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is the author of the books "Bad Medicine" and "Food At Work." Got a question about Bad Medicine? Email Wanjek. If it's really bad, he just might answer it in a future column. Bad Medicine appears each Tuesday on LiveScience.
https://www.livescience.com/health/080911-bad-herbal-medicine.html
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For more about the History of Ayurveda Herbs..
Another piece of truth about Ayurveda is that because there
is no single source, not even a single "book" with the original form of these
concepts, each person who became "expert" has felt free to develop his own
school of thought -- so some Ayurvedic Centers are very different in what they
teach and practice from others.

The
ancient Rishis, or realized beings, discovered truth by means of religious
practices, disciplines and through intensive meditations. Rishis and sages
like Shushrutacharya, Charakacharya, Vagbaht, Sarangdhar etc. created great
commentaries, contributing their efforts and insights to make it available to
all of us.
Raso Vai Ayurveda brings a unique way to
continue the traditional science in this modern life style.
(source)

So, Western Science SHOULD look at the Indian Ayurvedic
Medicine and take from it the wonderful history of herbal remedies, but separate
out any religious philosophy or ceremony.
Here is an example of the combination of a ritual, or
ceremony, combined with a physical treatment, showing an Ayurvedic treatment for
arthritis.  I would, personally, be very willing
to try this treatment -- it sounds like fun.  But, I would tend to
scientifically study those "herbal oils" to see if "rubbing" them on your skin
would accomplish the same thing.  In other words, the science without the
ritual.  I am ready to discover that the ritual is an important part of the
treatment, but I would start off somewhat skeptical.
page: www.painstudy.com/.../AyurvedicHerb/index.htm