‘Allopathy’ is an archaic terminology only used in India. The correct terminology is Modern Medicine. Modern medicine requires that all drugs are proven effective and their safety well-established before they are administered to humans

1. Ayurveda vs. Allopathy :
A comparative account in terms of research methodology
‘Allopathy’ is an archaic terminology only used in India. The correct terminology is
Modern Medicine. Modern medicine requires that all drugs are proven effective and
their safety well-established before they are administered to humans. Drugs are tested
through clinical trials and statistical analysis of the data is performed to test the efficacy
or otherwise of the drugs tested. Modern medicine will happily accept an ayurvedic
medicine if it passes all clinical trials.
On the other hand, ayurveda is an ancient Indian system of medicine and methods
designed for wellbeing of humans. Apart from medicines, it also prescribes a certain
life style - for example moderate food intake, abstinence from alcohol and taking
adequate and varied nutrients from different food groups. The medicines used are of
whole plants or its parts like roots or flowers. Ancient sages wrote down rules for
prescription. They also wrote down what would be the adverse outcomes when a
particular medicine is used. They also highlighted limitations and cases where nothing
much can be done. Unfortunately, this vast repertoire of knowledge was not improved
upon very much although initiatives in this respect are taking place currently.
Allopathy follows strict scientific, ethical and regulatory standards in the identification
and testing of any medicine or device. The evidence on safety and efficacy is gathered
through a series of studies starting from Phase I to Phase IV after pre-clinical trials
with animals. During the initial phases, the drugs are subjected to thorough pharmaco-
kinetic and pharmacodynamic investigations. The collection of data, its validation and
statistical analysis are conducted in a strictly objective manner. The conclusions are
expressed in probabilistic terms. The reports and along with the data are sent for
approval, to the regulatory bodies, which are cross validated through independent
agencies like contract research organizations. There are also systems for monitoring
adverse signals during post marketing period wherein the drug is used over a much
larger population than that was used for the trials. The approaches followed are
predominantly experimental or that belonging to case-control studies. Survey
approaches are adopted for estimating prevalence and in the case of epidemiological
studies. Survival analysis is a special case of data collection and analysis with no
intervention or otherwise for comparative studies. Since a large number of trials take
place by one or many agencies, there is much scope for consolidation and meta-
analysis. Unless there are proprietary rights involved, the key results are published
and widely circulated in scientific journals. Over the ages, allopathy has evolved from
simple physiological studies to complex genetic and molecular studies. In spite of all
the rigorous routines followed, the side effects of allopathic medicines pose a big issue
and could turn to be catastrophic on long-term use of even well-established drugs.
Unlike allopathy, ayurveda has a backlog of traditional knowledge and established
treatment schedules and lays much emphasis on lifestyles and building up of
immunity. So, it is more of preventive than a corrective system of medicine. The
general experience is that ayurvedic drugs have little or no side effects and are useful
even for chronic diseases. Because many of these medicines are time-tested, not
much re-investigations have taken place to prove or disprove the traditional methods
or approaches. In the recent times, lot of interests have surfaced for bringing ayurveda
in line with the modern medicine and more and more investigations are being

2. undertaken in this domain. The research approaches and methods followed are
generally in tune with the allopathic standards and quite a few investigations involve
gathering confirmatory evidence through supportive laboratory investigations. One
danger in copying the pattern of allopathic clinical trials in ayurvedic trials is ignoring
the basics of ayurvedic treatments. When ayurveda insists on adjusting the dose and
type of treatment as per the nature of the patients when needed, this doesn’t seem to
happen in many trials. At the least, stratification of patients as per their Prakriti could
be implemented while conducting clinical trials.
Perhaps the biggest innovations have taken place in the manufacturing of ayurvedic
products. The traditional home-based preparations have given way to large scale
factories and newer production and packaging practices. In-house regulatory bodies
also are also functional in many countries and pharmaco-vigilance is active for many
ayurvedic formulations and practices. Although the domain offers all the challenging
situations for employing complex investigational methods, the current research
methods are not as advanced or extensive compared to its allopathic counterparts.
For instance, the use of adaptive designs, Bayesian analysis and many modern data
science methods like decision tree, neural network or support vector machines are yet
to become popular in ayurvedic research.
It is under this context that we will need to compare the foundations of these two
systems of medicine and see why and how certain standards or practices cannot be
amalgamated. The concept of disease and the treatment are diametrically opposed
from the perspective of allopathic and ayurvedic medicine. While allopathic medicine
in many cases sees the illness as an attack on the body, and the treatment as a fight
against it, ayurveda approaches the disease as an imbalance in the body, and the
treatment as bringing the body back into balance. In more detail, ayurveda traces any
disease in humans in respect of imbalance of certain features in human body caused
by improper lifestyle and so aims at regaining the lost balance, leading to elimination
of the diseased condition. For example, the negative impact the processed food has
on health is well-known. The number of diseases worldwide is persistently growing
which is linked to the intake of processed food, as well as to the unhealthy lifestyle of
the modern man. Hence detoxification of the body is an important part of ayurvedic
treatment. Allopathy on the other hand primarily believes in giving the patient an
immediate relief through fast biochemical intervention, suppression of infection by
external organisms if any or surgical removal or replacement of affected parts or
entities. The long-term consequences of interventions are many times ignored and
thus may further worsen the condition of the patients leading sometimes even to
addiction to particular drugs. It is not that allopathy does not insist on a healthy lifestyle
although its basic tenets are different.
Ayurvedic system takes a holistic approach, which treats the person as a whole,
contrary to the ‘reductionist’ methods of allopathic medicine. Western medicine treats
the symptoms and not the cause, which leads to chronic diseases, that in terms of
allopathic medicine, can be characterized as incurable. Unlike in the case of modern
medicine which relies heavily on biochemical and radiological investigations for
diagnosis, ayurveda recommends pulse diagnosis as a very precise method for
detecting imbalances in the body. Ayurveda also recognizes very much the Prakriti of
an individual, which is a kind of biotype determined predominantly by hereditary

3. factors. Modern medicine is increasingly recognizing this aspect which is termed
‘personalised medicine’.
In its anxiety to come up to the modern standards, ayurveda could emulate allopathic
means of comparisons forgetting its own fundamentals. For instance, mere
administration of a set of ayurvedic formulations and making follow-up observations
without insisting on the required lifestyle changes or dietary restrictions will be of no
use in ayurvedic trials. This is a dangerous trend which is to be completely eliminated
although it is a good practice to seek confirmatory evidence through supportive
modern measurements. However, the need of the day seems to be going into
fundamentals of ayurveda principles and investigating why and how it works, in the
light of current medical knowledge. Interestingly, some attempts in this line are already
underway such as ayurgenomic studies or chemical characterization of ayurvedic
formulations.
Additionally, there is substantial lack of information on the biochemical pathways of
many ayurvedic formulations with respect to its action on the human body. This is one
area which needs immediate attention. Ayurveda also has to break out of its
conventional framework and come up with innovations in treatment schedules or type
of drugs which will be a major jump in its making. Finally, perhaps an integration of
these two branches of medicines would prove to be a better alternative. This is leading
to a very positive trend called ‘complementary or integrative’ medicine, occurring
worldwide due to the insight that allopathic medicine does not possess the answers to
all the questions. It has become evident, even to allopathic physicians, that certain
ancient skills such as ayurveda or traditional Chinese medicine could significantly
contribute to the success of treatment.
Jayaraman
Chief Biostatics Consultant, AyurData