[fifnir]

Here's a nice smackdown which I don't have the time or knowledge to offer myself:

"He abandons [Dr. B.M. Hegde] all rational thinking and embraces fantastical belief systems. The sad thing is I personally know many people delaying cancer treatment being swayed by his speeches and ending up with incurable metastasis later."

https://www.quora.com/Do-you-agree-with-the-controversial-vi...

[rajadigopula]

Understood. May be the modern world needs another wim hof to become a subject to the existing science - validity though current limited existing medical tools to prove/validate that humans can get access to autonomous nervous system and heal themselves (which was thought to be impossible in modern days). The approach Dr. hedge took is not registering with the rest of the world according to the comments above. May be he should have proven his claims subjecting to the existing methods just to give that level of confidence who trusts it like wim hof did.

[pcnix]

It's not about giving confidence to people, the existing methods are part of the fundamental idea of the scientific method. Dr. Hegde's claim of body types doesn't really mean anything until there's evidence to back it up. And modern medical trials are crafted and investigated with a wide variety of statistical tools to determine the exact impact of a treatment method. Only if his claims can stand up to this rigorous scrutiny can they be accepted the way existing models are. The rest of the world will then sit up and take notice, exactly because only then will there be something for them to take notice of.

An appeal to the ancient wisdom of Ayurveda doesn't really stand on it's own until it's backed by solid peer reviewed science. It's really not that hard, a well designed set of trials proving your point will have the entire world at your feet. Modern science is extremely receptive of new ideas that way.

[rajadigopula]

Agree. Unfortunately, this is never going to happen. The few still practicing Ayurveda properly come from a background where they learned it from their ancestors within their family and practicing it for free and never allow commercialization of their knowledge. But they can gladly share the knowledge to people who want to learn. Food, Education and Medicine/health are the 3 things the practitioners in Indian culture believes to keep free. A few decades ago, you want to gain education, you seek a guru and become a disciple and he teaches for free. You got a health issue, you go to a doctor and he treats you for free. Same with food, every town/village used to have centers where food is served free to anyone. Although it's all gone decades ago, there are still practitioners who treat patients for free and only take donations and not fee. Sounds, funny but It's easy to understand the underlying wisdom, how many studies today are funded by people with commercial interests? Research on egg is funded by Meat industry, Research on milk is funded by Diary industry etc. How is that turning out for everyone?

[klmr]

In fact, most studies are funded either by governments or via donations from the public. Some public studies are partially funded by industry, but with a big caveat: industry has no say on how the studies are conducted, or even what is being studied: industry contributions to public research are not bound to research outcomes. And all this information is readily available, since publicly funded research institutes publish their funding sources.

It’s true that industry is funding some (publicly published) research directly, and that some research publications fail to disclose their funding source and other conflicts of interest. But for the vast majority of biomedical research, especially fundamental research, this simply isn’t the case.

And it requires a complete suspension of one’s critical thinking capacities to imagine that some vast, weird conspiracy encompasses all of public research, to suppress the “truth” that Ayurveda works, contradicting everything we know from modern medicine as well as basic physics and chemistry. And all that just to make a few pharmaceutical company bosses rich? Why would I, lowly researcher on a sub-par salary, contribute to such a conspiracy? It’s completely irrational.

[zevyoura]

> How is that turning out for everyone?

Dramatically increased life expectancy, reduced childhood mortality, etc.

There are problems with the modern health system, but it does seem to produce much better outcomes than what came before.

[pcnix]

I appreciate the honestly in this answer, and your willingness to accept how people see something you clearly seem to care about.

As for commercialization of Ayurveda, I see this as exactly what's happening now with Patanjali etc trying to cash in on people's trust in their culture without providing a proper research base for their claims.

Another reply to your comment above makes very good points about research funding, and in my experience, funding is to a large extent non partisan, and free from industry influence. There are even rules on disclosure of funding about major studies, which makes it possible to criticize them.

I only wish that Ayurveda is held to the same standards as other medicine, and passes through the fire of testing the same way all modern medicine has. It's how we know that antibiotics work, or about interactions between medicines, or about side effects and complications. It will ultimately benefit the field, and medicine as a whole.

[shawnz]

> Unfortunately, this is never going to happen. The few still practicing Ayurveda properly come from a background where they learned it from their ancestors within their family and practicing it for free and never allow commercialization of their knowledge. But they can gladly share the knowledge to people who want to learn.

How is it possible that they could have prevented that information from ending up in the hands of profiteers even after all these years? And no profit hungry pharmaceutical company has ever been able to rediscover and commercialize those techniques, even though the details of them are mostly freely available on the internet?