West adopts ayurvedic knowledge to heal intestinal diseases
BSS, Dhaka
The indigenous knowledge practised over hundreds of years in this region to heal intestinal diseases have been lately acknowledged by western medical world in a refined form, with a Bangladeshi doctor playing a crucial role in proving its effectiveness.Doctors in the United States and Europe now widely prescribe "probiotics" or living micro organisms found in dairy products like yogurt and skins of fruits like litchi to heal intestinal diseases, an idea suggested in India's Ayurvedic writings, dating back to 6000 BC. A research carried out by US-based Bangladeshi doctor Zahangir Khaled largely helped establish the effectiveness of probiotics particularly for "irritable bowel syndrome" along with other stomach disorders including diarrhoea, food allergy, abdominal pain and axima and in countering side affects of antibiotics on intestinal system. "The use of probiotics to heal the diseases actually is a very old idea originating in our part of the world. The west has adopted it recently just in a refined manner and prescribing it in the forms of tablets, capsules, powder or even as milkshakes," said Khaled, currently a paediatrician affiliated with Children's Hospital of Illinois in the United States. Anyone can buy probiotics in the western countries without even doctor's prescriptions as it does not have any apparent adverse effect, he said. K0haled said the main function of probiotics is to activate the beneficial bacteria to check the harmful ones and it was particularly prescribed along with antibiotics, which usually kill the good bacteria alongside the bad ones in many cases causing diseases like diarrhoea. The 300 square metre surface area of human intestine, many times larger than the body surface, contains billions of bacteria of 400 different types, some of them beneficial for the body and other are harmful as they cause stomach and intestinal diseases and disorders. Khaled said currently other than yougurt in its traditional form, probiotics in the form of medicine were yet to be available in Bangladesh because of lack in the medical arena here though the idea was originated from this region. "I am willing to work in the country on probiotics and hope doctors and others concerned will pay their attention to this recent development in treating intestinal disorders," he said.
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