Rooting for tradition

The Western nutrition science is primitive and yet we, the Westernised elite in India, are so brainwashed by it that we can’t shake off the need for protein even when we are 75 years old.
For representational purposes
For representational purposes

Western nutritional science is in its infancy. Allopathic physicians have no clue about nutrition. One must ponder over a medical ‘science’ which does not teach its students about nutrition.

The last time I looked at the syllabus of undergraduate medical students there was no subject on nutrition. Hence, it is that when a patient has undergone a second surgery for liver resection (and there are likely to be adhesions etc. in the gastro-intestinal area) the surgeons blithely say on the 6th day after surgery “as far as we are concerned you can eat anything.”

This goes so much against simple logic and common sense. And, of course, the patient was in trouble. In a problem like ascites when the liver is struggling to function, the nutritionist (who has no knowledge of medicine) prescribes a heavy protein diet.

The only preoccupation of the nutritionist is to increase the albumin level in blood. No thought is given to whether the patient can digest and assimilate the diet being prescribed.

At 65, even most healthy people cannot digest overly rich and heavy foods but the nutritionist prescribes nuts and whey protein etc. to a patient struggling with weak digestion or as we say in Ayurveda, a very weak agni or digestive fire.

This invariably exacerbates the condition sought to be treated.

The Western nutrition science is primitive and yet we, the Westernised elite in India, are so brainwashed by it that we can’t shake off the need for protein even when we are 75 years old.

The Western nutritionist has little or no knowledge of the diet-disease connection and we continue to give prizes to scientists who say Helicobacter pylori bacteria is the cause for ulcers. Almost 20 percent of the population has this bacteria, but not all of them get ulcers.

It is like saying cars are the cause of accidents. It is improper eating, eating the wrong foods at the wrong time that is the cause of the malaise along with lack of sleep and indisciplined lifestyles.

To draw the analogy further, it is lack of adherence to rules, lack of lane discipline and lack of knowledge of these rules by both the regulators and the general public that cause accidents. Of course, if you remove all vehicles from the roads there will be no accidents.

Similarly, you give powerful antibiotics and kill off bacteria; you may temporarily solve the problem but a more mature science would go further.

Ayurveda with the longest medical traditions in the world has a sophisticated and deep knowledge of nutrition and its link to disease.

Imagine the ire when we ayurvedists are asked to merge our medical tradition with an infant science, namely allopathy when they have no knowledge about the cause of most diseases or the close link between aharam, viharam and disease.

Some misguided enthusiasts propose that we merge our tradtional medical systems with allopathy.

This would mean the death knell of our traditional medical sciences and pave the way for the dominance of a Western medical science that is still in its infancy. The writer is retired Additional Chief Secretary of 
Tamil Nadu. She can be reached at sheelarani. arogyamantra@gmail.com/arogyamantra.blogspot.com

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