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Prof. Kumaraswamy Thanagaraj in his Lab

Ayurvedic Prakriti has a Genetic Basis

Ashish Sahani

PhD Research Fellow, Massachusetts General Hospital;

Research Fellow, Harvard Medical School; Cardiovascular Research Center

Ayurveda is considered as one of the upaveda. It is the oldest system of medicine which is a product of

integral view of life in Hindu Dharma where science, philosophy and religion are interwoven into each

other. In this age of reason, an intuitive system like Ayurveda, steeped in vedic symbolism is many times

viewed with a skeptic eye. Especially, its categorization of all humans into three types appears too

simplistic. But, often, profound truths are profoundly simple. Recently, a very important paper appeared

in the Scientific Reports journal published by the prestigious Nature group which showed that the triple

Prakriti classification is not arbitrary but, in fact, has a genetic basis. This work was done by a team of

scientists led by Prof. Kumarasamy Thangaraj from CSIR - Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology,

Hyderabad in collaboration with multiple institutions throughout India. The paper can be accessed at the

following link:

http://www.nature.com/articles/srep15786

I was asked by Vande Mataram team to elucidate this work in lay terms so that people without any

ayurvedic or genetic background might make sense of this development.

Ayurveda is based on the premise that the body is manufactured out of five basic elements – Air, Water,

Fire, Earth and Space. These elements form the three basic humors – Vata, Pitta and Kapha. Vata is a

combination of air and space, Pitta is a combination of fire and water and Kapha is a combination of

water and earth. Vata governs movement, Pitta governs metabolism and Kapha governs the form. For

example, in the stomach, the form of the tissues of the stomach is governed by Kapha, the acids are

controlled by Pitta and the movement of food through the digestive system is governed by Vata. In a

healthy individual all three humors would be in balanced condition. An imbalance in one of these humors

might cause an associated disease. For example, in the stomach, a Vata imbalance can lead to

constipation, a Pitta imbalance to acidity and a Kapha imbalance might lead to damage of protective

lining in the stomach. Actually, Ayurveda rarely concerns itself with bacteria or viruses and almost

exclusively focusses on balance of humors.

The central idea is that if a field doesn‟t

provide nutrition to the weeds they simply

cannot grow there. A healthy body with

balanced humors doesn‟t provide the

breeding ground for disease causing agents.

That‟s why Ayurveda is more preventive

than curative.

Almost every individual is born with one

dominant humor which is his individual

Prakriti. Thus one can be either Vata

Prakriti, Pitta Prakriti or Kapha Prakriti.

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This is frozen at birth depending on one‟s parents and conditions during one‟s conception. It doesn‟t

change during once lifetime. An individual with Vata Prakriti would have Vata type tendencies like

„working fast but tiring fast‟, „memorizing fast but forgetting fast‟, „quick anger and quick forgiveness‟.

He would also have Vata type body features like thin frame, long fingers and dry skin. And he would be

prone to Vata type diseases like constipation, joint pain and nervous weakness. Similarly Pitta and Kapha

Prakriti individuals would have Pitta and Kapha dominant characters respectively. Ayurvedic

practitioners observe the body type, mental disposition and preferences of a patient to intuitively judge the

prtakriti of a person. Nowadays there are many software available in the internet that can help you to

evaluate your ayurvedic Prakriti by answering a series of questions. The details of Prakriti are too many to

be covered in this short article. If the readers would like then, I can cover this in detail another time. For

now, we have sufficient understanding of Prakriti to understand the work of the Prof. Thanagraj‟s team.

Now, we would need to understand a little bit of genetics to understand this new correlation. DNA is

your full manufacturing datasheet. It contains all the information about your body like your height, the

color of your eyes, type of your hair, type of your skin … basically all the information about you. The

information is coded in the DNA in form of nitrogen bases – A (Adenine), T (Thymine), C (cytosine), G

(Guanine). Inside a DNA, these are arranged like a sequential assembly code; for example

AAGTCAGCAATTCCG…. Each human has approximately three billion of these base pairs that

completely defines the body of a particular individual. A copy of your full DNA is contained in the

nucleus of each cell. Ribosomes are the protein producing factories in the cell. They read the genetic code

from the DNA and manufacture the encoded proteins. Actually, humans share 99.5% of their genome.

That means the difference between two human beings are just due to 0.5% of differences in the DNA.

These differences occur in form of single neucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs). Let‟s say the code for your

black hair protein is AAGGTCGTGC, your friend with brown hair might have a DNA code like

AAGGTTCGTGC. The difference is just at one base position and this is called a SNP. Scientists have

identified hundreds of SNPs which can explain particular body structures and vulnerability to particular

diseases. For example SNPs in ACT13 gene can aid fast twitch muscle fiber action and is a commonly

found in successful sprint athletes. Another SNP rs4665058 can increase the risk of sudden cardiac death

by 50%. Genome wide correlation studies are commonly done to find SNPs responsible for particular

diseases.

Common sense says that as Prakriti in Ayurveda defines body types and disease vulnerabilities and gene

SNPs also give us similar information so, there must be some link between both of them. In this study

Thangaraj and his team pooled 971 individuals from the Indian population where each person had one

clear dominant Prakriti. Out of them, they randomly selected 262 individuals and performed a genome

wide analysis on each of them. During this, they identified 52 SNPs that are clearly different in

individuals with different Prakriti. Using this they proposed a model to classify individuals into different

Prakritis purely on the basis of genetic analysis. In principal component analysis, this model could clearly

stratify the 262 controls onto three individual groups. Then they used this model to classify individuals

with unknown Prakriti. The classifications are strikingly clear and above all they have also found it to be

independent of ancestry.

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Principal component analysis (PCA) with 52 SNPs that showed p-value of <1 × 10-5 (A) PCA of 262 individuals

with known Prakriti showing three clusters (Vata, Pitta, Kapha), despite their linguistic, ethnic and geographical

diversity. (B) PCA projection of Indian population samples with the model.

Source: http://www.nature.com/articles/srep15786

Additionally, they also found a strong correlation between PGM1 gene and Pitta Prakriti. Earlier work

available in scientific literature suggests multiple pathways in which PGM1 is associated with digestion,

metabolism and energy production which is in fact the core function of Pitta as per Ayurveda.

If you ask me, I would say this is a ground breaking work on two counts. First, it proves that Ayurveda is

no humbug! Charaka stands vindicated. Secondly, this would now make it possible to evaluate your

Prakriti using lab based DNA tests which, I think, would be more accurate and objective compared to

current methods which are subjective and depend a lot on the experience of the doctor.

I am aware of many Indians, especially those with English education, looking at Ayurveda with

skepticism. It is expected. Minds of the current generation trained to look everything objectively would

find it hard to appreciate a subjective and intuitive medicine system like Ayurveda. Hopefully this work

would put all doubts to rest and restore the faith in our ancient system of medicine. At Harvard, we have

very active Chinese professors who have taken up numerous research projects on proving the efficacy of

Chinese medicine, Tai Chi and acupuncture. Comparatively, Indians are doing very little to promote or

preserve their much richer cultural inheritance. Many Ayurvedic products have been patented by foreign

companies. There have been attempts to patent aloe Vera, haldi, neem and brahmi. Yoga and meditation

have been taken up by western institutions, stripped off their spiritual and philosophical basis, converted

into a mere physical exercise routine which is now an industry worth billions of dollars. There are more

than 130 yoga related US patents. What are we doing about it? Nothing much! Work like this definitely

gives me great hope. We need to be proud of our spiritual heritage which has stood the test of time, and

now, even stands the test of science. As Sri Aurobindo would say, “The spirit shall look out through

Matter's gaze. And Matter shall reveal the Spirit's face.”