Ayurdietics - The Art of Prakriti Based Personalised Eating

Abstract

Introduction: Ayurdietics means combination of Ayurveda and Dietics i.e. dietary habits. The art of Prakriti based personalised eating elucidate the interaction between diet and prakriti. The new science focuses on how food affect our genes and can play an important role in disease treatment, prevention and mitigation through nutrition. According to Ayurveda, we all have different Prakriti i.e. Vata, Pitta and kapha, that reside in the body to help regulate its state. Ayurved merges food and natural drugs to reach a balance of these pathophysiological condition in each person . Ayurdietics embolies the study of inter-individual variability due to genetic variability in humans for assessing susceptibility and establishing diagnosis and prognosis mainly on the basis of the constitution type of a person’s prakriti. Personalised nutrition is a novel concept for developing personalised functional food and nutraceuticals suitable for one’s genetic makeup with the help of Ayurvedic concept . This review study aims to highlight the Ayurdietics in predictive, preventive and personalised aspect to maintain health.

Objectives: Improving health and preventing disease through tailored diet.

Methods: Textual resources have been used for this study, from which various references have been collected. Foremost Ayurvedic texts as Charak Samhita, Sushrula Samhita, Ashtanga Sangraha, Ashtanga Hridya and the available commentaries on these books has been used. Related modern texts and websites have also been searched for recent knowledge.

Results: We find that Ayurdietics presents a huge scope of development towards the understanding of Prakriti based nutrition research. The fundamental recommendations can be very useful in framing health recommendations and personalized food design.

Conclusions: This Ayurveda-inspired concept of personalized nutrition is a novel concept in the realm of nutrigenomic research for developing personalized functional foods and nutraceuticals suitable to one's genetic makeup. The concept is that food and drugs intersect, considering their effects according to the genetic constitution (Prakriti) of a person at the systems biology level. It is evident that the reviewed techniques can be of utmost use in Ayurdietics research. This review introduces and presents this novel concept of Ayurdietics as an emerging area of research, which may unfold future possibilities.