Vata, Pitta and Kapha – Science Speaks

Vata, Pitta and Kapha, Does The Western World Know?

It now seems that there exists some evidence for real application of the ancient Vata, Pitta, and Kapha designations in the ancient medicinal world of Ayurveda. Through the use of genetic markers and using a large sample that included men from unrelated ancestry there now appears to be a viable connection to the three classifications that have long been promoted under Ayurvedic principles. These findings illustrate that ancient practitioners intrinsically understood the specialized nature of medical treatment and how it is necessary to treat each individual based on certain characteristics that once born belong to the individual in both a physical and spiritual nature.

Read Where The Interconnection Of Western Genetics and Ayurveda Meet…

Study shows phenotypic classification by traditional Indian medicine has a genetic basis and ancient medicine in a way is personalized medicine

As part of Ayurveda, Indian medical practitioners have for centuries categorized individuals under three major types under the umbrella concept of Prakriti—Vata, Pitta and Kapha.

Now, a team of Indian scientists, using genome analysis, have published a paper in Nature journal showing this phenotypic classification by traditional Indian medicine indeed has a genetic basis and ancient medicine in a way is personalised medicine. For their study, researchers conducted a genomewide SNP, or single nucleotide polymorphism, analysis on 262 men.

The scientists found 52 SNPs, or genetic variations, which could be used as distinguishing factors for the three Prakritis. Using principal component analysis of these SNPs, the individuals were categorized into the three categories. For comparative analysis, researchers used data from 297 Indian samples, including 150 Dravidians, 80 Indo-Europeans, 35 Austro-Asiatics, 27 Tibeto-Burmans and five Great Andamanese. In addition, 15 trios of Dravidians, and 15 trios of Indo-Europeans were used for imputation.

“Interestingly, although we had individuals from different ancestries and communities, they all got classified into these three classifications. This was a sign there is real science behind this Ayurvedic classification,” said Thangaraj, who is one the co-authors of the paper.

Previous efforts to link Prakriti classification with genetic information and variations have not made much way. An important finding in this paper was that a gene called PGM1 correlates with the phenotype of Pitta, as is described in the ancient Ayurvedic text of Charak Samhita. With this, the researchers concluded the phenotypic classification of India’s traditional medicine has a genetic basis.

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