Ayurveda-Forums.Org

[ayurvedico]

Dear all,
I have cholesterol and I want to know if ayurveda could help me to reduce my level of cholesterol. I'm not "fit". I don't "exercise", or "take care of my body". I have been told I have "cholesterol problems", and that I am "obese". I'm not arguing any of these points... please help!

[alizea]

I have just been through an article especifically about ayurveda and cholesterol.
It is an article from CNN, a bit old but the title is expressive: "Ancient Indian remedy 'lowers cholesterol'"

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -- A traditional remedy used for 2,500 years in Indian ayurvedic medicine works to lower cholesterol, and in a new way that might lead to the development of improved drugs, researchers said on Thursday.

The resin of guggul, or the myrrh shrub, is used in India to battle obesity, arthritis and artery disease, and is now approved for lowering cholesterol.

David Moore of the Baylor College of Medicine in Houston found the guggul extract lived up to its reputation.

"It really does lower cholesterol in a number of clinical studies in the Indian literature," Moore said.

But the one study that has been done in the United States showed the remedy in fact raised cholesterol slightly, and Moore said it could interact with other drugs.

Writing in the journal Science, he said the thorny myrrh tree has been used in Indian Ayurvedic medicine since at least 600 BC to treat obesity and other disorders.

Moore's team found the steroid guggulsterone, the active agent in the Guggul extract, blocks the activity of the farnesoid X receptor (FXR) on cells.

FXR helps regulate cholesterol by affecting bile acids, which are produced from cholesterol and released by the liver.

"Bile acids are the only way that cholesterol has to get out of the body," Moore said in a telephone interview. "We knew that FXR was a key regulator of cholesterol metabolism."
Blocking FXR

Moore wanted to study FXR more, so he looked for compounds known to lower cholesterol whose mechanism of action was not understood.

"I spent quite a lot of time clicking around the Internet," he said. He found guggul, along with niacin -- often prescribed for cholesterol patients -- and red wine, among others.

Red wine and niacin were not involved enough with FXR to interest him, but gugulipid, available in health food stores in the United States, was.

Tests in mice showed guggul extract lowers cholesterol by blocking the effects of FXR. "We put mice on a high cholesterol diet for a week and measured cholesterol levels in the liver," said Moore, who worked with colleagues at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas.

"In normal mice you feed them cholesterol and the cholesterol level in the liver goes up, but if you feed them cholesterol and give them guggulsterone at the same time, the cholesterol levels stay the same," he said.

Mice bred to lack FXR did not respond to guggul.

Moore, who with colleagues has set up a small biotechnology company called X-Ceptor Therapeutics, Inc. in San Diego, California, said it might be possible to more specifically target FXR with a drug. The company has patented FXR.

"As a pharmaceutical company you are not going to be interested in producing something that is already available, but you going to be interested in producing something that is better," Moore said.

Moore, who takes statin drugs to lower his own cholesterol, tried guggul. "It dropped my total serum cholesterol by 10 percent," he said.

"But we had some evidence that it might have effects on the activity of other drugs and I stopped taking it."
Weight reducer
Obesity
Guggul extract is being marketed in some countries as a weight reducer

Other claims for guggulipid are that it can help you lose weight by increasing metabolism. "I was disappointed there," said Moore, "It did not affect my weight."

Dr. Philippe Szapary, a University of Pennsylvania professor of medicine who did the only U.S. study on guggulsterone, said he was surprised to find it actually raised cholesterol in the two-thirds of 103 patients who took it.

"There is no doubt that it is active and has some effects on lipid metabolism," he said in a telephone interview.

"But these things are very complex. Things look exciting at first and when you apply them to large groups you find something different."

He said diet or genetics would affect how guggul acts on a person's metabolism.

Guggul is not the first "natural" remedy found to lower cholesterol. In 1998 the U.S. Food and Drug Administration banned cholestin, made from fermented red rice and used in traditional Chinese medicine, saying it contained the prescription drug lovastatin.

But a federal judge reversed the ruling in 1999.

The link is here:
http://archives.cnn.com/2002/WORLD/asiapcf/south/05/03/india.ayurveda/index.html?related

[madison]

Alizea, I also found a complementary article from Better Nutrition magazine. I used to buy every issue, ten years ago ...

Boswellia serrata: an ancient herb for arthritis, cholesterol, and more
Better Nutrition , March, 1996 by James J. Gormley

Three texts form the pillars of classical Ayurvedic science, which has its roots in the country we now know as India: Charaka's Charaka Samhita (c. B.C. 700), the first, fundamental medical text; Susruta's Susruta Samhita (c. B.C. 600), which attempted to amass the whole of medical knowledge, with a special focus on surgery; and the two-volume tome consisting of the Astanga Samgraha and the Astanga Hridaya (c. 130-200 A.D.), written by Vagbhata the Elder and Vagbhata the Younger, which synthesized the works of Charaka and Susruta and summarized the eight parts of Ayurveda in prose and verse.

The first two pillars of Ayurveda describe the anti-rheumatic (antiarthritis) activity of guggals, which are gum resins of trees.

From traditional Ayurvedic texts to modern medicinal use

In addition to use for arthritis, this gummy resin (called "Salai guggal" in the vernacular) is also mentioned in traditional Ayurvedic texts as a remedy for diarrhea, dysentery, ringworm, boils, fevers (antipyretic), skin and blood diseases, cardiovascular diseases, mouth sores, vaginal discharges, ...... hair loss, jaundice, hemorrhoids, syphilitic diseases, irregular menses and to stimulate the liver.

Modern medicine and pharmacology point to Boswellia serrata's use as an anti-arthritic, anti-inflammatory, antihyperlipidemic (controls blood lipids), antiatherosclerotic (anti-coronary plaque), analgesic (pain-reliever) and hepatoprotective (protects the liver).

Anti-arthritis. Its anti-inflammatory and anti-arthritic activities have been mainly attributed to a component in the resin containing [beta]-boswellic acid.

Salai guggal has been studied by India's Regional Research Laboratory (Department of Pharmacology), located in Jammu Tawi (M.L. Sharma, et al., International Journal of Immunopharmacology, 11 (6):647-652, 1989).

This research has implicated a beneficial role for the resin in the treatment of osteoarthritis, soft-tissue rheumatism, low-back pain, gout and rheumatoid arthritis. Although rheumatoid arthritis is a crippling disease causing great physical suffering, it is possible to alleviate physical pain, increase movement (mobility) and prevent further tissue injury through proper treatment.

The standard drugs for the treatment of this condition cause undesirable side effects, including gastric irritation.

Treatment with Boswellia serrata, on the other hand, has produced excellent results. In an animal-model study by R.R. Kulkarni, et al., which appeared in the Indian Journal of Pharmacology (24:98-101, 1992), Boswellic acids "significantly reduced the infiltration of leukocytes into the knee joint," in turn significantly reducing inflammation-causing immune whited blood-cell response.

Inflammation. Boswellic acids have been shown by H.P. Ammon, et al. (Planta Medica, 57 (3):203-207, 1991) to be particularly effective in the prevention and control of inflammatory processes, which have been linked to: inflammatory joint disease, psoriasis, allergic and chronic asthma, and certain inflammatory diseases of the intestine (ulcerative colitis, Crohn's disease, and chronic hepatitis).

For pain relief, fever-reduction, cancer prevention, and more

As mentioned earlier, Boswellia serrata has been demonstrated as very effective in liver protection, exhibiting "protective effects against chemical and biological" toxins that cause inflammation and injury to the liver (Safayhi, Biochemistry and Pharmacology, 41:1536-1537, 1991); pain-relief (Menon and Kar, Planta Medica, 19:338-341, 1971); fever-reduction (Singh, Drugs of the Future, 18 (4):307-309, 1993); cancer prevention and protection (Mukherji, Indian Journal of Pharmacology, 32:48, 1970); and as an anti-bacterial (Atal, Selected Medicinal Plants of India, 1992) and anti-fungal (Garg, Indian Journal of Pharmacology, 1974).

Alcohol extracts of Boswellia serrata have been shown to significantly lower serum cholesterol and serum triglyceride levels, and reduce body-fat accumulation in hyperlipidemic animals. In fact the extracts prevented, or reversed, atherosclerosis in animals who received high-fat diets.

[jamesgormley]

Glad my article was helpful.....
Many thanks.
James (Gormley)

[madison]

Dear Dr. Gormley,
It was a real pleasure to read your article and I'm glad to have re-published it here so more people can share your work. I used to read Better Nutrition a long time ago but I'm still deeply interested in all aspects of natural therapies.
Do you still write articles in this field? about Ayurveda? Where can we read more?
I'm glad to had the opportunity to thank you for sharing your knowledge with us.
Regards,
Madison

[jessicaKloser]

Arjuna (Terminalia arjuna) Arjuna has been acclimated back centuries in the analysis of affection accompanying problems such as affection attacks. The case of the arjuna if taken in crumb anatomy has benign properties. This can deliquesce the cholesterol that accumulates in the coronary avenue and abate the achievability of affection attacks.

[Marina_J]

Hi I am Marina from Australia and I am new to this forum. Hope I will learn many new things about yoga from this forum.

[chris90]

You could take Ayurveda Medication plus good exercise. it can help you lower your cholesterol levels.