Role of ayurvedic health care system in healthy aging: Disease prevention and health promotion

Ayurveda is a traditional healing system with over 5,000 year history. The primary goal of Ayurvedic medicine is to uphold healthy state of being and secondly establishing health in diseased. Both goals are achieved though balancing the body, mind and spirit. Ayurveda explains, how lifestyle and diet recommendations in accordance to seasons and individual body types can be used to maintain health. A branch of Ayurveda called Rasayana (rejuvenation) deals with maintaining health and healthy aging. Herbs, supplements, dietetic ingredients and procedures described under Rasayana, are studied and found to help promote tissue longevity. Their actions are attributed for their ability to remove metabolic toxins and providing antioxidant effect. Modern literature supports this action by explaining suppression of free radical formation, breaking free radical chain propagation and damage repair. Another branch of Ayurveda, Panchakarma, incorporates detoxification therapies to remove toxins and keep the body healthy. These concepts of Ayurvedic traditional holistic healthcare system can be easily integrated into one's day-to-day life to promote a better quality of life and can play a major role in the prevention of many chronic diseases in the aging population. Even though the practices of Ayurvedic health modalities have been observed for several thousands of years, there is a need for scientific evidence to evaluate the effectiveness. This paper attempts to explain how this comprehensive natural health care system can be used in health promotion as well as prevention of diseases using evidence from current literature.