Ayurvedic genomics: establishing a genetic basis for mind-body typologies

Ayurveda, India's natural health care tradition, has a unique way of classifying human population based on individual constitution or prakriti. Ayurveda's tridosha theory identifies principles of motion (vata), metabolism (pitta), and structure (kapha) as discrete phenotypic groupings. Patwardhan et al. (2005) hypothesized in a paper published in this journal that there is a genetic connotation to prakriti and as proof of this concept showed a correlation between HLA alleles and prakriti type, establishing a rationale and preliminary experimental support for the concept of an association between HLA alleles and the Ayurvedic tridosha theory of individual prakriti types. This work is both part of and a catalyst for a wider revolution in the scientific investigation of Ayurveda in India, referred to as "Ayurvedic biology" and "AyuGenomics." Subsequently, Chen et al. (2007) reported a similar study in this journal using a classification based on Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) theory.

The findings of a genetic basis for both Ayurvedic and TCM classifications indicate a commonality between Asia's great medical traditions in their diagnostic typologies and a genetic basis for Asian traditional medicine's theory of discrete and discernable groupings of psycho-physiologic differences. Accordingly, new horizons have opened for collaborative East-East research and for an individualized approach to disease management and activation of the full range of human potential, as articulated in Ayurveda and TCM.