Dr. Mukund Baheti delinked the ancient wisdom with modern scientific insights of Langhan or Fasting at Academy of Medical Sciences, MGIMS, Sevagram
Diet is clearly one of the fundamental to good health, yet just few of us really spend thought or time on designing a diet that will promote health. Far too many people have fallen prey to the comforts of modern life, with its physical inactivity and reliance on foods that provide temporary sensory gratification at the expense of true nourishment. As a result, there is an epidemic of diet-related diseases in the developed and developing countries. Fasting or Langhan, once used to be a customary practice in our Indian culture are now getting replaced by corollary rituals like substituting another spectra of food and therefore the effects convened through the spiritual and scientific process of fasting need another revamp integrating ancient wisdom and modern insights from science as revealed through the mind capturing talk at Academy of MGIMS delivered on 15th April by Dr. Mukund Baheti, a senior consultant Neurologist from Nagpur who enjoys the Holistic Integral Knowledge from both Ayurveda and Allopathic science.
He shared the stories from various prestigious Journals like Nature (2014, 2012) wherein how the calorie restriction experiment on rhesus monkey as well as mice reduced age-related and all-cause mortality. This is mediated through a compound called SRT1720 which helps in slowing the process by reducing the levels of serum endotoxins as good as reversing the oxidative damage. Interestingly the median lifespan and maximum lifespan was increased by 20% and 25% respectively.
It is easy to give your body its best chances of achieving and managing good and long lasting health as the universal opening of tender skin of GIT gets rejuvenated and the fasting helps proliferate the gut stem cells like Paneth cells, said Dr. Baheti while illustrating the pooled analysis from scientific studies.
Sharing this story, Dr. Baheti is helping to raise the awareness and visibility trends of what we used to faithfully practice in our ancient times standing in good stead with deeper logic proved by science. In one of the most profound display of rigorous review, Dr. Baheti revealed how even 20% to 40% of calorie restriction boosts the immunity in humans as well as helps preventing diseases like hypertension, Alzheimer’s disease and Stroke.
“I love the way he was highlighting scientific evidences and molecular mechanism behind fasting because a lot of people did not understand that calorie restriction could be so beneficial beyond one’s belief and fear of malnutrition”, said Dr. B. C. Harinath, Director, JBTDRC & Arogyadham Cetre, Sevagram who felicitated dr. Baheti with token of love from MGIMS.
Dr. Ulhas Jajoo, Professor and Head of Department of Medicine further added that “it is typical for many to start fasting at this point of time from here to increase their chances of being younger and free themselves of ghastly non-communicable diseases which only gets worse with time and all allopathic interventions available with us”.
While every story is different, this talk will certainly inspire countless scholars, caregivers and patients who believe in embracing ancient trend once set off when scientific evidence were difficult to substantiate but were apparently running parallel with such a reverenced practice in our Indian culture.