Ayurveda aids fight against AIDS, says US doctor

“The advent of protease inhibitors — medicines preventing the virus from making copies of itself, virtually cleaning it from the blood — combined with the use of alternative medical therapies, the number of HIV infections throughout the world is currently showing a decrease for the first time,” says Gerson. As a result, HIV-infected people are less likely to progress to full blown AIDS, he says.

These therapies range from Ayurvedic practices of Dinacharya andRitucharya, daily and seasonal disciplined rising at proper time to hygiene and use of drugs such as Ashwagandha and Guduchi, he feels.

This allopathy doctor from the Mt. Sinai School of Medicine, New York, with a private practice in the city is perfectly at home here, rattling off names like the Charaka Samhita, Shushruta, Astang Hridayan, the Bhagwad Gita, the Upanishads, all texts that he has read, besides much of the Mahabharata.

“I believe that I was an Indian in my past life, maybe a bad practising Vaidya, and have been sent back to improve on it,” he says with a grin, claiming that he has never felt like an outsider in India.

Gerson’s interest in Ayurveda was kindled while on a visit to India as a college student of 19. He mastered Sanskrit during intermittent visits to the Benares Hindu University.

“I went back after that first visit and studied Hindu philosophy,” he says, “and since this was not possible without knowledge of Sanskrit, I learnt toread the script.”

He offers his patients consultation in Ayurvedic medicine. “In the past 10 years with the advent of modern information, more and more people are coming to know about Ayurveda in Europe and America,” he says.