Nature Care For Diabetes India

Diabetes seems to be occurring to everyone—most people know a friend or family member who has developed it.Many people with diabetes are interested in naturopathic treatments to help manage their condition.

Diabetes is believed to be an incurable and lifelong disease. The goal of treatment in diabetes is to reduce high level of glucose in the blood stream and remove the cause of the disease.

The  symptoms of diabetes are:

• Increased thirst
• Increased hunger
• Increased frequency of urination. 
• Fatigue
• Weight changes
• Eye problems
• Foot problems
• Heart problems.  
• Numbness 
• Tingling will occur in limbs. 

Naturopathy recommends a diet and no drugs. The main purpose is help the body to assimilate the sugar into the system,that can be achieved by a special diet methods.The person suffering from diabetes must take long walks daily.Avoid Cereals, sugar and sugary preparations.

Diabetic patients need to welcome many changes into their lives. Diabetic patients will need to change their food intake to a low carbohydrate diet and maintain healthy food as per the instruction of your doctor.

Naturopathic doctors use various therapies to manage the complications of diabetes.Diet modification,Exercise and other medications is the best way to regulate blood sugar and manage diabetes. Treatment plans are individualized because every person experiences diabetes differently. Naturopathic doctors also use various therapies to manage the complications of diabetes.

Are you interested in exploring naturopathic remedies for your diabetes?Swas Healthcare is best option for you.They provide safe and affordable healthcare solution for chronic health problems.

 

Less is more – the Naturopathy way

When I quit my job about 8 years back, I realized, after 6 years of working, my accumulated savings were less than what I had paid as Income tax in these years. If you add to this the interest on the income tax and the indirect taxes, my savings might have been half. I felt bad about it. Really bad. Was I working to earn for our lousy government so that it can sue my hard earned money to build savings of ‘insiders’.

             Last 8 years have been very different. That ratio has changed significantly for better. Not by stealing taxes but by reducing my earnings and expenses. While I must admit, lot of it has been unplanned and unintentional; I feel better, lot better.

             Less money means one is less worried about property prices, stock market, bond prices, interest rates etc. That means a lot of worry free time that one can use for more enjoyable things. While I have been on this path by sheer luck, I know of several friends who have chosen this path after lot of deliberation. One recommended reading on the topic is ‘Subtraction’ by one of these friends.

             Ok. Enough of bhumika. This blog is about Naturopathy and I intend to explain its basic premise of “less is more” through an anecdote. Couple of years back, my then 3 year old son contracted conjunctivitis. He almost ignored it and by next day he was fine. Next was my wife’s turn. She tried some remedies but not too many and was fine by third day. And then it was me. I was very restless. Could not afford to waste my time just resting J  So, I tried several natural remedies and utilized free time to play games on computer, phone, and do whatever else possible. It took me full 5 days to recover.

             Naturopathy relies a lot on body’s ability to self correct and recover. We just try to help body in the process without obstructing its functioning. Key is to provide nutrition through easy to digest nutrient rich food (mostly raw fruits and vegetables), cut calories and provide physical and mental rest so that body can focus on making repairs. We try and aid this process through some treatments to improve blood circulation in affected areas or using external forces to do things that body might be finding difficult to do in its current weakened state.

Most of the time our patients insist on more treatments, thinking that would give them maximum bang for the buck. Sometimes we succumb to their arguments and recommend some ‘filler’ treatments. A clear observation is that patients who have a very hectic day at the center take longer to recover. Isn’t it obvious that to reach equilibrium or say to re-establish it, we need to do less. Intelligent doctors prescribe fewer medicines, not more. But mostly we try to bring the balance through active intervention. Suppressing that fever through a paracetamol, suppressing that infection through an antibiotic, suppressing that pain through a pain killer. Next time you get a fever just try taking the day off – resting and fasting. That is what my son does and perhaps most children would do if left to themselves. Hopefully, we’ll always have the courage to let him do it. Hopefully I’ll someday learn it from him J

Intelligent plants and we the dumb people

Some time back in a seminar, I heard a very concerned botanist and ayurveda expert talking about how most of the research in Ayurveda is going in the wrong direction. He said that currently most of it is aimed at discovering the active ingredients in various plants, extracting that ingredient and using it for the benefit of people. He simultaneously pointed out that most of the molecules used as ‘active ingredients’ in various medicines have proved to have relatively short useful life of few decades. Either the germs become resistant to this purified form of chemical or its effectiveness in humans start to drop over time. Compare this with herbs (crude mixture of several compounds) which have served mankind over several centuries without going out of fashion.

Ayurveda normally defines properties of herbal medicine as its ras (taste), gun (attributes), virya (potency), vipak (attributes of drug assimilation), and prabhav (dominating influence). For decades we have not added any herbs to Ayurvedic pharmacopoeia as we do not know how to identify these 5 properties of any new herb. His view was that new research should be aimed at solving this problem.

I heard another very senior and respected physician talking about how we try to simplify (over simplify) the traditional medical knowledge and try to put it in neatly drawn boxes. Think of coca leaves (from which cocaine is extracted) which are traditionally used in Latin America for both diarrhea as well as constipation. It might sound totally counter intuitive but it is true. Several herbs when used in their original form actually act as balancing herbs. So different ingredients become active based on the body’s condition. Nature surely is much more intelligent that most of us believe it to be.

I intuitively felt that these voices made a lot of sense but recently found some modern scientific proof for the same. It came from a very unusual source though. I recently met an old friend who works in open innovation area and he shared something very interesting.

A large MNC thought that it’ll be good business to be able to sell products with claims of health benefits derived from wisdom of traditional medical knowledge. Soon a big budget and high profile team was allocated for the project. Work began by empanelling doctors and Ayurveda institutes. Soon the team realized that they need scientific evidence to be able to make claims. More modern immunologists, doctors and labs were empanelled. A high profile researcher asked for an expensive piece of equipment, MALDI-TOF/TOF, and it was quickly sanctioned.

Trials started with some known ayurvedic remedies and soon team reached conclusions that most ayurvedic physicians know intuitively.

1.       There was no single molecule acting and triggering a change in the metabolism but there were multiple molecules acting at different stages of metabolic cycle and bringing about a change.

2.       Chromatography and Spectrophotometry revealed that the molecules were not the simple ingredients present in the plant but actually reaction products formed during processing of the herbs, through processes which are meticulously defined in ayurvedic reference texts.

The team realised that it is too complex a phenomenon to be explained through simple scientific tools and even more difficult to synthesize and incorporate these in everyday foods or products.

I wonder how something studied, invented, and documented centuries ago perhaps without help of any sophisticated equipment is so difficult for us to even understand today in spite of all the help from advanced measuring equipment and highly brainy computers. This reminds me of Buddha, who 25 centuries back discovered the nature, cause, and remedy of all sufferings just by looking deep inside himself and we with all advanced understanding of anatomy, physiology, and neural networks are still unable to comprehend. May be more on this in my next post.

PART IV: Why I left a cushy job at one of world’s largest Pharma MNCs to promote NATUROPATHY – Tale of 4 brothers

This is 4^th and concluding article in the series of 4 articles.

This is perhaps the least interesting of the four stories but it carries most useful lessons. About four decades back he graduated from Lok Bharti. It was a very renowned institute back then, esp for rural studies. Sort of a larger and more grounded version of IRMA [I met some of his professors and got a whiff of an inspired place that Lok Bharti would have been]. He was a very bright student and got couple of job offers on graduation but he had different ideas. He wanted to do farming.

Many thought, it was crazy enough to reject decent job offers but why take up farming in the water scarce region of Kutch. His logic was simple, Kutch is where I belong. Over the years, he developed the farm and raised a family.

He never built a bank balance but life was fine. He could educate his 3 children well and lived a decent life. More importantly he along with his elder brother earned lot of respect in the community for their contribution to the development of the region. He furthered the work of his father in the area of education for the poor and rural development.

Now in his mid sixties, he still works on the farm, runs the social development initiatives, and lives a simple peaceful life. I have never seen him worrying; he hardly ever gets agitated, is still a curious reader, and can go to sleep in a trice.

He has never had any major episode of illness and at this age also does not suffer from any of the common chronic conditions like high BP, diabetes, arthritis etc. Fit enough to do tough physical work and wise enough to find time to work for others. He is Dinesh Sanghvi, my father-in-law.

Most would attribute his good health to farm fresh food and active lifestyle. But these are obvious. Most of us give importance to what is physical. We think diet and exercise are two most important things for staying healthy. This is what all the neo-medical experts promulgate. Even when we talk about Yoga, it is just about asanas and pranayam because these are two physical aspects of Yoga.

But there are other more important pre-requisites of good health. There are at least two that I want to mention.

a)                 One’s ability to accept the situation as it is and control ones reaction to it rather than trying to control the external factors causing it.

b)                 Live a life which is not very self-centered. Life that has space not only for other people but also other life forms.

Unfortunately few doctors understand the above and even fewer are equipped to incorporate this in their treatment methodology. So most doctors do what is economically viable today. Treat the symptoms of diseases.

I hope it’ll change someday and healthcare would become what it is suppose to be - knowledge of taking care of health rather than just treating diseases.

To know if we can help you in your medical condition, you can call us on +91-2837-292062 / 286882 or write to us at info@swashealthcare.com

PART III: Why I left a cushy job at one of world’s largest Pharma MNCs to promote NATUROPATHY – Tale of 4 brothers

This is 3rd in the series of 4 articles.

This is perhaps most transforming of the 4 stories. It is also the oldest. More than 3 decades back in late 70’s. A doctor completed his education and returned to his village in Kutch as a qualified Ayurvedic practitioner. Like most Ayurvedic doctors of his times, he started out as a general practitioner. He treated patients from nearby villages using the best knowledge he had. Pain killers, steroids, and other drugs were key tools in his tool box.

Since patients got quick relief and there were no other doctors in the nearby villages, his practice picked up very well. Soon he had good patient flow and was making good money.

One day while he was having lunch, a friend of his jokingly tapped him on his head and he bit his tongue. The cut was deep and severe and it started bleeding profusely. He was taken to a hospital where doctor put stitched on his tongue. Unfortunately the tongue being soft tissue, the stitches didn’t stay. Doctors tried it again with same results. The condition worsened each time and he was given blood transfusion.

As days passed by he became weaker and his condition worsened. Only hope was to meet a bigger doctor in a bigger city, Mumbai. As the family made preparations, he was taken to Bhuj, which had the airport. They got down at another Doctor’s place in Bhuj. This doctor was educated in US and left his flourishing practice there to come back and serve in small town where he felt there was more need for his services. Those were heady days and people were led more by their heart than head. He read a book by Gandhi and that inspired him to come back to his people and serve them. He was equally influenced by Gandhiji’s experiments in Health and medicine. He shunned his western learning and adopted Naturopathy as his key line of treatment.

Many relatives came to meet the patient and some thought it would be their last meeting. The US educated doctor made a suggestion to the patient’s family. Why don’t we try some simple naturopathy treatments before moving the patient to Mumbai. The family agreed and the treatment started. He treated patient by regularly putting drops of cold lemon water on a piece of cotton cloth placed over the cut. The bleeding stopped within a day and the tongue slowly healed. In couple of months, patient was fine and became doctor again. Of course a very different Doctor this time. He chose Naturopathy as his main tool.

He became an intern again under the doctor who healed him. May be at a salary 1/10^th of what he was earning before the incident. He learned at the feet of his guru and went on to become what I call a Rockstar of Naturopathy. He earned fame, ran a very successful practice, went to several countries to help people learn and adopt Naturopathy, went on to set up a beautiful Nature Cure Center and earned what you can call a fan following. People know him as Dr Jay Sanghvi.

About 25 years after the incident, I met him while he was still building his new Nature Cure Center and I was fresh out of IIMA. I was amazed to see how he treated patients for chronic medical conditions using simple Naturopathy treatments. The set up was simple, tools were simple, and environment was very non-clinical. It was a hospital most unlike a hospital. The meeting changed the course of my life. I was fascinated by the idea of setting up several of such hospitals, making it accessible to common people, spreading the beauty of simplicity.

Few years later, I quit my reasonably comfortable job at GSK and set out to make this dream a reality. It gave birth to what is today called Swas Healthcare. I was extremely lucky to have my inspiration as my co-founder. I only wish I could partner more of such doctors who have the understanding, conviction, and most importantly the humility to accept that it is not the doctor but the nature that heals. Be the guide, be the lamp.

To know if we can help you in your medical condition, you can call us on +91-2837-286812 / 286882 or write to us at info@swashealthcare.com