Sourced from Debating the Value of Eastern Medicine (Ayurveda) - Dr. K and Dr. Mike
- Ayurveda is exceptionally good at observations and identifying patterns and correlations. They have documented diseases far before western medicine documented the same
- Ayurveda is personal medicine. It is not aimed at populations as a whole but at individuals
- Ayurveda wasn’t subject to proper instrumentation to verify the repeatability and reproducability of their observations. Also, Ayurveda wasn’t subject to Randomized Controlled Trials (RCTs) that western medicine considers to be the gold standard for scientific validation and evidence-based medicine
- There’s no way to judge whether an Ayurvedic practitioner is good or not. There are no rigid standards to compare with. There is a high chance that a lot of it rides on the placebo effect. It doesn’t seem reliable
- Allopathic medicine → starts with RCTs and generalizations and moves to individuality
- Ayurvedic medicine → starts with individuality and moves to generalizations
- There is potential in eastern medicine. They have introduced (based on real or non-real theories) ideas that have been taken by western medicine and refitted with a different name
- Alternative nostril breathing, that is part of the yogic practice of Pranayama → Cardiac Coherence Breathing
- Yoga nidra (yogic sleep) → Non-sleep deep rest
- Concepts taken from eastern medicine have been scientifically interpreted and it has been shown that they outperformed standard exercise. There is potential. We don’t know whether all of Ayurveda is crap
- The underlying mechanism and the theory that drives the practice must not ideally be ignored or discarded by western medicine