Priv.-Doz. Dr. med. Christian Kessler (D)

What kind of Ayurveda research do we need? And what do we need for Ayurveda research?

Medical Ayurveda research in Germany and Europe is still in its infancy despite visible efforts and some high-quality scientific publications. Ayurveda is still light years away from a wider acceptance in the public health systems of most European countries - the prerequisite for this is evidence from research and of this there is simply too little and of the little available research too little is really good research. There is still a lack of an interconnected support scene and a sufficiently networked infrastructure for scientific projects on Ayurveda in all areas: basic research, clinical studies and interdisciplinary approaches. This lecture will show which kind of research could make effective contributions to the establishment of Ayurveda in Germany and Europe and which basic conditions have to be created for this.

This lecture will show which kind of research could make effective contributions to the establishment of Ayurveda in Germany and Europe and which basic conditions have to be created for this.

Irritable bowel syndrome (RDS) is a common disease and patients with RDS have symptoms that can significantly affect quality of life. A multicenter randomized controlled clinical trial with 69 patients with RDS was conducted between January 2017 and February 2019 at the Outpatient Clinics for Integrative Medicine at the Charité University Outpatient Clinic for Naturopathy at the Immanuel Hospital Berlin and the Department of Naturopathy at the Essen Mitte Clinics. The patients received either traditional Ayurvedic nutritional counselling or RDS nutritional counselling according to the recommendations of the German Society for Nutrition in three 45-minute individual sessions in weeks 1, 3 and 9 after the start of the study. The study visits took place at the beginning of the study after 3 and 6 months. The primary endpoint was the severity of RDS measured by the IBS-SSS questionnaire after 3 months. Secondary endpoint parameters included stress (using CPSS), anxiety and depression (using HADS-D) and RDS-specific quality of life (using IBS-QOL). First results of this study will be presented.