CME INDIA Presentation by Dr. N.K. Singh, MD, FICP, Director, Diabetes and Heart Research Centre, Dhanbad, Jharkhand, India. Editor, www.cmeindia.in.

Essence of Year 2080 Vikram Samvat which starts on March 22nd

• Indian New Year will be celebrated on 22 March 2023 on Vikram Samvat 2080.
• Samvatsara was initiated by King Vikramaditya, hence it is called Vikram Samvat. It is 57 years ahead of the English calendar.
• The celebrations mark the start of the Hindu New Year as per the Luni-solar calendar.

Concept of Life Style Modifications in Vedic Science

• Concept of preventive treatment in Vedic science appears far ahead of modern science.
• It revolves around life style changes in regard to diet and physical activity but aims at maintaining the highest level of spiritual health.
• Modern science closely follows the essence of Vedic science and no wonder in days to come it will be in perfect tuning with ancient Indian science.

What Modern science brought so far?

• Concept of Healthy lifestyle practices including physical activity, healthy diets, non-smoking, reduced alcohol consumption and stress reduction have been validated to prevent metabolic CVD risk factors such as hypertension, overweight and obesity, diabetes and hyperlipidaemia.
• It is well appreciated that owing to current lifestyle changes, the increasing burden of CVD has stormed the population.
• We are aware of the importance of healthy behaviours and the need for strategies to increase uptake of healthy lifestyles. Healthy lifestyle practices are the backbone of the growth of our society.

Defining Life Style Modification (AHA)

• A healthy lifestyle is defined by consuming a healthy dietary pattern, engaging in regular physical activity, avoiding exposure to tobacco products, habitually attaining adequate amounts of sleep, and managing stress levels. 

Concept of ideal cardiovascular health

• It has been coined by the American Heart Association and is defined as the absence of clinically manifest CVD and optimal levels of 4 health behaviours (smoking, physical activity, healthy diet, and a healthy body weight, a proxy for energy balance) and 3 CVD risk factors (blood glucose, total cholesterol, and blood pressure).
• But it lacks the concept of spiritual health.

Physicians can do wonders

• Accumulating evidence shows that clinicians are well positioned to influence the lifestyle practices of their patients.
• The USPSTF has firmly opined that primary care interventions to promote a healthful diet, physical activity, or both result in improvements in health behaviours and lower CVD risk in patients with and without cardiovascular risk factors.

What is 5 A Model?

• The 5A Model by the US Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF)
• Assess
• Advise
• Agree
• Assist
• Arrange

Courtsey:Ref.4,AHA

Revisiting INTERHEART Study

• It is still the most cited study to understand the risk factors for CVD.
• It prioritizes lifestyle-related behaviour changes that have the strongest evidence for CVD risk reduction and the greatest magnitude of benefit with consideration for the patient’s clinical profile.
• The INTERHEART Study evaluated the effect of modifiable risk factors associated with myocardial infarction in 52 countries, including lifestyle factors defined as smoking, intake of fruits and vegetables, and physical activity. 
• After multivariate adjustment, smoking was the strongest risk factor for myocardial infarction (odds ratio, 2.95 [99% CI, 2.72–3.20]), and daily intake of vegetables and fruits (odds ratio, 0.70 [99% CI, 0.64–0.77]) and moderate or strenuous physical activity (odds ratio, 0.72 [99% CI, 0.65–0.79]) were protective.
• Risk of myocardial infarction was reduced by 80% in those with all of the healthy lifestyle factors. 

Pillars of Ideal Cardiovascular Health

• Recently it has been found that healthy lifestyle behaviours are positively and independently associated with academic achievement.
• Apart from dietary and physical activity related interventions we need to modify lots of modifiable risk factors which have endangered the health of younger generation.
• One of the major hazards is inadequate sleep duration and sleep disorders which are increasingly being recognized as risk factors for CVD.
• For the first time, the 2019 AHA heart and stroke statistics included a sleep section, and it was recommended in the 2016 AHA scientific statement on sleep duration and quality that sleep behaviour be addressed as part of efforts to promote ideal cardiovascular health. 
• AHA scientific statement concludes that both short (<7 hours per night) and long (≥9 hours per night) sleep duration and sleep disorders (e.g., sleep-disordered breathing, insomnia) are adversely associated with CVD risk in adults.

Mental stress is emerging as a number 1 killer and Indian ancient science is the answer

• The Mental Fitness has been found as a great threat in 21st Century world.
• People are in trouble due to anxiety, stress and depression.
• Data from different parts of the worlds show that Indian Ancient Mantra and Yoga along with Pranayama lead to mental fitness.
• Indian Culture and Gayatri Mantra related scientific analysis are the backbone of spiritual wellness.
• Researchers are intensely studying the effect of “Agnihotra (Hawan).”
• Some studies from US point many scientific facts behind it. It has been found to be an important tool for repository of biographical power replenishment.
• It could be a big solution to environmental problems.
• Vedic sound understands how the human body is interconnected within as well as outside.
• So, by integrating the role of mind and consciousness in the human body, ancient science is distinctly different from biomedicine’s Newtonian physics-based perception of the organism as a structural entity made up of fundamental units of building blocks, that is, atoms and molecules.

CME INDIA Learning Points

• The increasing popularity of Vedic science in the Western world health care context
• Dr Giuseppe Tucci, the foremost founder of the Italian Orientalism, opines: “India is the spiritual organ of Asia.”
• Indian ways of living are unique. It coins for people’s whole bio-psychospiritual unity and equilibrium, including their relation with the environment.
• The World Health Organization has adapted the term “Traditional Medicine” and urges the necessary ethics to protect, safeguard, promote, study, and apply the cultural heritage of Western and Eastern medical and anthropologic health knowledge and systems.
• Beginning of Indian New year, 2080 Vikram samvat on 22nd March 2023 urges for a holistic sustainable philosophy and related behaviour in terms of health management.

CME INDIA Tail Piece

Vedic Science Need to be incorporated in Modern Science

• Importance of Yajna (यज्ञ):
  • Due to the dirt coming out of the human body continuously, the air system gets contaminated. Its purification is done with the aroma of Yagya. If we humans create a fragrance by wearing a body and produce the same fragrance, we get rid of the crime of contaminating the public air element (Yagya: A Holistic Healing Process.)
  • Havan gas has many useful chemical elements. It is an illusion that the smoke of the incense contains carbon dioxide and any other toxic gas. Havan gas is devoid of this defect. Even if there are some toxic parts, the evaporative effect of the melt makes it beneficial by destroying it. Many chemical aromatic substances located in it cleanse the environment by removing all types of pollution. In addition to purification of air, Havan gas purifies many elements such as space, water, etc.
• The Meditation and Pranayama:
  • Do it with Yajna and Mantra Chanting. It will be more useful in combating stress, diabetes and many more human health threats.
• Nourishment:
  • Charaka Samhita, one of the oldest texts in Ayurveda, states that nourishment is derived from “Rasa,” a Sanskrit word whose root-meaning carries numerous connotations such as juice, liquid, fluid, or essence of any plant or living being and taste as a sense, love, affection, and desire.
  • Nourishment should invoke a profound physical and psychological effect, and as such, even a substance containing all necessary vitamins and minerals may still not be considered “nourishing.”
• Research on Gayatri Mantra is Illuminating to spiritual happiness:
  • The earth (bhur), the planets (bhuvah), and the galaxies (swah) are moving at a very great velocity… the sound produced is Om (the name of formless God.) That God (tat), who manifests Himself in the form of light of suns (savitur) is worthy of bowing/respect (varenyam). We all, therefore, should meditate (dheemahi) upon the light (bhargo) of that deity (devasya) and also do chanting of Om. May He (yo) guide in right direction (prachodayat) our (nah) intellect (dhiyo).
  • It is interesting to note that Dr. Howard Steingull, an American Scientist has established that recitation of Gayatri Mantra produces a frequency of 110,000 Hz (> 20 kHz).
  • The patterns of chanting of Mantras are so designed that they latently contain the essence of the music, life sustaining energies emanating from the cosmic energy centre of the corresponding Mantras. (The cosmic energy centre, a deity associated with the Gayatri Mantra is Sun). Uttering of Gayatri Mantra produces vibrations which are soothing to human mind, all plant and animal life.

References:

1. Ndejjo R, Musinguzi G, Nuwaha F, Bastiaens H, Wanyenze RK (2022) Understanding factors influencing uptake of healthy lifestyle practices among adults following a community cardiovascular disease prevention programme in Mukono and Buikwe districts in Uganda: A qualitative study. PLoS ONE 17(2): e0263867. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0263867
2. Healthy lifestyle behaviours are positively and independently associated with academic achievement: An analysis of self-reported data from a nationally representative sample of Canadian early adolescents. https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0181938
3. Whitlock EP, Orleans CT, Pender N, Allan J. Evaluating primary care behavioral counseling interventions: an evidence-based approach.Am J Prev Med. 2002; 22:267–284. doi: 10.1016/s0749-3797(02)00415-4
4. Strategic Planning Task Force and Statistics Committee. Defining and setting national goals for cardiovascular health promotion and disease reduction: the American Heart Association’s Strategic Impact Goal through 2020 and beyond.Circulation. 2010; 121:586–613. doi: 10.1161/CIRCULATIONAHA.109.1927
5. US Preventive Services Task Force recommendation statement.JAMA. 2020; 324:2069–2075. doi: 10.1001/jama.2020.21749
6. Yusuf S, Hawken S, Ounpuu S, Dans T, Avezum A, Lanas F, McQueen M, Budaj A, Pais P, Varigos J, et al.; INTERHEART Study Investigators. Effect of potentially modifiable risk factors associated with myocardial infarction in 52 countries (the INTERHEART study): case-control study.Lancet. 2004; 364:937–952. doi: 10.1016/S0140-6736(04)17018-9
7. St-Onge M-P, Grandner MA, Brown D, Conroy MB, Jean-Louis G, Coons M, Bhatt DL; on behalf of the American Heart Association Obesity, Behavior Change, Diabetes, and Nutrition Committees of the Council on Lifestyle and Cardiometabolic Health; Council on Cardiovascular Disease in the Young; Council on Clinical Cardiology; and Stroke Council. Sleep duration and quality: impact on lifestyle behaviors and cardiometabolic health: a scientific statement from the American Heart Association.Circulation. 2016; 134:e367–e386. doi: 10.1161/CIR.0000000000000444
8. Strategies for Promotion of a Healthy Lifestyle in Clinical Settings: Pillars of Ideal Cardiovascular Health: A Science Advisory From the American Heart AssociationPenny M. Kris-Etherton,Kristina S. Petersen,Jean-Pierre DesprésOct 2021https://doi.org/10.1161/CIR.0000000000001018Circulation. 2021;144:e495–e514
9. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/349343048 Vedic Systems and their Scientific Aspects to Sustain Mental Health: A Solution for Challenging Issues for Human Race in Epidemic Time Article · January 2021 DOI: 10.23880/JONAM-16000299 Rastogi R. Vedic Systems and their Scientific Aspects to Sustain Mental Health: A Solution for Challenging Issues for Human Race in Epidemic Time. Nat Ayurvedic Med 2021, 5(1): 000299
10. Evidence-Based Complementary and Alternative Medicine Volume 2011, Article ID 929083, 7 pages doi:10.1155/2011/929083Advent of a Link between Ayurveda and Modern Health Science: The Proceedings of the First International Congress on Ayurveda, “Ayurveda: The Meaning of Life—Awareness, Environment, and Health” March 21-22, 2009, Milan, Italy Antonio Morandi,1, 2 Carmen Tosto,1 Guido Sartori,1, 2, 3 and Paolo Roberti di Sarsina4
11. R. Jayasundar, “Quantum physics, Ayurveda and spirituality,” in Science and Spirituality Quest, S. C. Mishra, Ed., pp. 11–28, National Institute of Technology and Bhaktivedanta Institute, Kolkata, India, 2008.
12. R. Jayasundar, “Health and disease: distinctive approaches of biomedicine and Ayurveda,” in Leadership Medica-Medicine, Economy, News and Culture for Opinion Leaders, vol. 275, pp. 6–21, 2009.
13. Scientific Analysis of Mantra-Based Meditation and its Beneficial Effects: An Overview.June 2017.International Journal of Advanced Scientific Technologies in Engineering and Management Sciences 3(6):21.DOI:10.22413/ijastems/2017/v3/i6/49101
14. Dhar, H.L., ―Meditation Therapy in Cardiovascular and Metabolic Disorders Special Reference to Coronary Artery Disease and Diabetes‖, Bombay Hospital Journal, Vol. 51, No. 4, 2009, p.474.

Discover CME INDIA

• Explore CME INDIA Repository
• Examine CME INDIA Case Study
• Read History Today in Medicine
• Register for Future CMEs

Get CME INDIA Highlights

Curated articles in your inbox.

SUBSCRIBE!

You have Successfully Subscribed!