AMN / Dehradun
Experts attending the 10th World Ayurveda Congress (WAC) here described Western countries’ restrictions on Ashwagandha as “financially and politically motivated”. They said Ashwagandha a widely prescribed Ayurveda medicine in India for a plethora of ailments and the best-known herb across the world.
While Denmark has banned the use of Ashwagandha, several other European countries and the United States have clamped a lot of restrictions, including mandatory labelling disclosing some of the so-called serious side effects.
Participating in a session on “The Ashwagandha Saga: Safety, Science and Evidence,” the experts pointed that only the root of the herb is used for producing medicines in India, but companies in the western countries are importing the leaf extracts of the plant for making and selling food supplements claiming that these improved stamina and vitality.
All the experts were unanimous that Ashwagandha medicine has been found to be safe for over thousands of years and this has been confirmed by hundreds of published research papers.
Among those who aired such sentiments were Prof Vinod Diwan from Karolinska University of Sweden, Prof Anupama K from Southern California University of the United States, Dr Jorge Luis Berra, Director of the post graduate courses in Ayurveda Medicine at Argentina Medical Association, and Dr Bhushan Patwardhan, National Professor with the Ministry of Ayush. Other experts who shared these assessments were Prof J.B. Gupta from the World Ashwagandha Council, India, and Ms Stina Andersson from Swedish association of Ayurveda.
Criticising the ban in Denmark, they said the study in that country has violated all the norms for conducting such research as the results were neither published, nor peer reviewed or critically analyzed. Further, the dozes used for the study were several times higher than the amount prescribed by the doctors in India.
Ashwagandha root has medicinal properties but its leaves are toxic and since the western study was based on the leafy product, the research result is irrelevant for the use of the medicine, they noted.
Also, it is ridiculous to ban Ashwagandha on the basis of the so-called study conducted on food supplements that contained the herb’s leaves. The study did not even document the extent of the side effect on the thyroid gland or other organs.
Any medicine, be it Ayurvedic or of other systems, would have side effects if taken far in excess of the prescribed limit and even water can pose serious health problems if consumed in dozens of litres a day, they explained.
One of the participants suggested a ban on the export of Ashwagandha leaves.
They appealed to all the stakeholders, including the government and herbal medicine manufacturers, to take concerted steps to convert this adverse situation into an opportunity to promote the use of Ashwagandha, the demand for which has grown exponentially in the recent past, particularly after COVID-19 as it was quite successful in the treatment of the pandemic.