CLINICAL AND SCIENTIFIC EVALUATION OF AMA IN AMAVATA

Abstract

Ayurveda has its unique approach towards how we can live a healthy life. So, Ayurvedic Acharayas have mentioned certain preventive regimens namely Dinacharya, Ritucharya, Sadvritta, Achara rasayana, Matrashitiya, Navegannadharaniya etc., if person fails to adopt these dietary and lifestyle instructions, may suffer from many diseases. Improper dietetics and lifestyle ultimately leads to formation of ama in body and causes a lot of diseases. Ama is improperly digested state of food resulting due to result of mandagni. Ama is also termed as an antigen, much capable for inducing immunological reaction as in Amavata (Joint disorders). Ama also has potency to induce immunological reaction in a susceptible individual. So diagnosis of presence of ama in body is very necessary, especially in Amavata patient because Amavata is one of the most painful conditions caused by ama. Assessment of status of ama, agni before planning proper therapeutics is necessary. The present work mainly emphasize on clinical assessment of ama in Amavata. For this 100 cases of Amavata were registered and divided in three stages according to duration of disease and assessment of ama was done in all. Various subjective criteria were used to diagnose ama, which have been described in Ayurvedic classics. Ama was present in all the cases of Amavata but more dominancy of ama causes more severely appearances of amavata characters and out of 100 cases of Amavata, 86 cases were of Rheumatoid arthritis, 6 cases were of Systemic Lupus Erythematosus, 5 cases were of Reactive Arthritis and 3 cases were of Ankylosing Spondylitis.