“Let food be thy medicine”
(Hippocrates)
By: Mahrukh Ali
(Doctor of Pharmacy)
If we go
years back we see when people start living together in a community, making
their families they came in contact with each other. They hunt animals to fulfill their intake purpose. During all these events man get diseased, which
let them believe that disease is the curse of god. When god is unhappy from
anyone he make him/her ill. They keep those ill people in a place far away from
their localities so they avoid that infection to spread.
As the time
goes man came to know about herbs, shrubs, trees. They start using them by
crushing and mixing different herbs and then the period of diagnosis, treatment
starts. Many people at that time getting knowledge of different plants and
utilizing these knowledge for the treatment of diseases and start writing journals
letters about the treatments.
Then times
moves forward step by step man advances in the field of medicine. The concept
of synthetic medicine came. Pharmaceutical companies start making business.
They evolve the concept of treatment with single component and then what comes
RESISTANCE!! RESIS-TANCE!!
To cope up
with resistance researchers are researching but what we do in such situation?
What we are doing with our bodies? There are many many questions to which we
have to find solution but as far as our health is concerned we have to be very
careful.
“Let thy
food be thy medicine” is the famous saying of Hippocrates. It has been
interpreted by many people but in my view “food be thy medicine” is to be aware
of the fact that diseases to which we are fighting now a days is just because of
our dietary pattern. Our food is being respon-sible for the treatment of many
chronic diseases for centuries.
We are
shifted from natural remedies to diet of processed, fat and junk food. We
exposes our body to many of those chemicals that our body cannot metabolize to
excrete them to avoid any consequences for example obesity, is the main problem
that is associated with cardiovascular disease it doesn’t only effect
cardiovascular system but also kidneys are affected.
For the gut
ailments eating the right food and spices are enough. For example for nausea or
for gastrointestinal problems ginger is a wonderful example it works in the
same way as antiemetic does. It act as a prokinetic agent.
Tomatoes
have lycopene, intake of tomatoes lowers the risk of prostate and lung cancers
because it have antioxidant activity higher than other carotenoids. It prevents
the formation free radicals.
Turmeric
have long list of benefits. It has been use in different disease conditions like
diabetes, GI disorders, inflammatory disorders, bronchitis, Alzheimer’s disease
and it is hepatoprotective, neuroprotective and many more.
We have
heard a saying “prevention is better than cure” but we don’t follow it. As a
human being our top priority is our health and as an individual we should take
keen interest to know what we are eating, what will be its effects. Eat your
food as a medicine and consider grocery stores as a pharmacy.
Again here
considerable caution is required because excess of anything can also be
harmful, never ever imagine herb as innocuous. Be very careful because there is
also food-drug interaction, herb-drug interaction. For example ginger on one
side use as a powerful anti-emetic but it can also cause blood thinning so it is
recommended to avoid it when taking anticoagulant drug.
Garlic lower
the blood pressure and cholesterol but can cause allergic reactions and stomach
up-set.
Nature has
blessed us with no of blessings but it depends on us how we utilize it.
Moderation in life is very necessary as it is preached by our holy prophet Hazrat Muhammad (saw) “the food of one is sufficient for two, and food for two
is sufficient for four, and food of four is sufficient for eight”.
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