Integrating ayurvedic medicine into cancer research programs part 1: Ayurveda background and applications

Integration of Ayurveda into our current health care research programs is critical to making progress in global wellness and in disease prevention and control, especially for cancer. Ayurveda promotes resto-ration of the innate healing mechanisms existing in the body for optimal immunity, resilience, and health. Ayurveda also has an abundant resource of botanical products containing diverse pharmaco-active ingredients and millennia of experience of clinical applications for health benefits. But there is a lack of evidenceebased research to demonstrate its efficacy and potential. This 2-part review is written from the perspective of a western-trained biomedical scientist and student of Ayurveda. It aims to educate research scientist peers about the opportunities and challenges for scientific validation of Ay-urvedic herbal compounds, protocols, and modalities and inspire more research in this area. Part 1 will review several aspects of Ayurveda including principles of body constitution (Prakriti), digestion (Agni and Ama) and mind-body health, in relation to cancer. Part 2 [1] will focus on Ayurvedic botanical re-sources used for cancer and research studies will be discussed on selected herbal compounds. Research gaps and opportunities will be identified to guide development of research programs to validate safety and efficacy of these therapies. Importantly, the use of Ayurvedic modalities is not intended to substitute for allopathic treatments for cancer but as an integrative component for prevention and restoration of strength and immunity post treatment. (c) 2022 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. on behalf of Institute of Transdisciplinary Health Sciences and Technology and World Ayurveda Foundation. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).