Unnikrishnan Payyappallimana

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• PhD in International development
• Professor at University of Trans-Disciplinary Health Sciences and Technology

This is a book review of "Genome to Om"

We investigated the potential synergies between Ayurveda and Kampo within the context of biodiversity conservation in Mt. Hakusan Biosphere Reserve, to elucidate the linkages between traditional medicinal practices and conservation efforts. Methodology: 20 Indian students with backgrounds in Ayurveda and Nature Conservation from The University of T...

In Uganda, spirituality is closely associated with traditional healthcare; however, though prevalent, it is considered controversial, mystical, less documented and often misunderstood. There is a paucity of literature on the description of health, illness, disease, and management approaches among traditional spiritual healers. This article examines...

The editorial highlights the fact that there is limited communication between healthcare providers and patients about complementary and integrative medicine (TCI) like Ayurveda. To address this, healthcare professionals need better education on Ayurveda. Additionally, international collaborations can enhance research and credible information, ensur...

Traditional medicinal knowledge and healing practices of indigenous spiritual healers play important roles in health care, and contribute towards achieving Universal Health Care. Traditional spiritual healers (TSHs) are grouped into three categories. One category of Baganda TSHs, Balubaale, engage ancestral spirits during health management. Balubaa...

Traditional medicinal knowledge and healing practices of indigenous health care spiritualists play an important role in health care, and contribute towards achieving Universal Health Care. The traditional healthcare spiritualists (THSs) were grouped into three categories. One category of Baganda THSs, Balubaale, engage ancestral spirits during heal...

The increasing global sensitivity to spirituality in medicine and sociology has elevated the relevance of beliefs in ancestral spirits as an integral element in Africa’s multi-ethnic society and biocultural diversity for health management. However, ancestral spirituality in healthcare in the local context, remains sparse and elusive since most lite...

Introduction: The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic hit India in 2020. The first case of infection was reported in the State of Kerala on January 27, 2020, and the continuous surge of cases, variants of concern, lockdown restrictions, social distancing, and economic impacts were increasingly testing the psychological resilience of the...

A collaboration of academic and non-academic researchers examines the logic and reasoning of Ayurveda, an ancient Indian medical system. Ayurveda views health as a dynamic balance between the “Tridoshas” and emphasizes intrinsic host-centered factors for disease prevention and management, including for COVID-19. The foundations of Ayurveda, built o...

Health is one of the most visibly affected sectors in the growing global sustainability challenges with consequences at the nexus of human, animal and ecosystems health. One Health has emerged as an umbrella framework to address multiple, intersectoral health related sustainability challenges today. The One Health linked ideas of indigenous and loc...

In Uganda, spirituality is closely associated with traditional healthcare, however though prevalent, is considered controversial, mystical, less-documented and is often misunderstood. There is a paucity of literature on the description of health, illness, disease, management approaches among spiritual traditional healthcare practitioners. This arti...

Despite strides in healthcare innovation, information technology, and delivery systems, global health systems continue to face complex challenges. Health Systems Strengthening (HSS) with Universal Health Coverage (UHC) is a priority for the G20 countries. Adopting the sustainability lens to analyse the current crisis, this Policy Brief argues that...

This chapter provides an overview of the empirical evidence regarding the association between green space in general, and forests and trees in particular, and health outcomes. The evidence is organised by life stage, and within the three life stages – early life (Section 3.2.), adulthood (Section 3.3.) and the elderly (Section 3.4.) – by type of he...

More than 200 biomedicines have originated from traditional or ethnomedicine. However, the translation from traditional medicine to biomedicine involves high investments and a long duration for evidence generation. This route is arduous and unnecessary for medical cultures such as India, which has supported the coevolution of pluralistic health cul...

A pluralistic Health system provides options for people to choose appropriate healthcare approach. However, the ability to make informed decision is infleuenced by many factors. An informed decision is one of the attributes of self-reliance. In this study, through the interactions with smallholder farmers, we tried to travel through the realm of co...

Ayurveda is a centuries old traditional medicine practiced in India even today. There are certain safe medicinal plants with well-established medicinal properties both in clinical practice as well as in modern scientific publications. Guduchi or Tinospora cordifolia (Willd.) Miers (Menispermaceae), is one such medicinal plant that has well known an...

Public health discourse about COVID-19 pandemic has mostly been framed around biomedical interventions, although there is evidence of the effective use of traditional medicine (TM) to manage the pandemic by some Asian countries such as China, Thailand, Vietnam and India. This article aims to place on record the policy of medical pluralism in the tw...

Over fifty years of global conservation has failed to bend the curve of biodiversity loss, so we need to transform the ways we govern biodiversity. The UN Convention on Biological Diversity aims to develop and implement a transformative framework for the coming decades. However, the question of what transformative biodiversity governance entails an...

Over fifty years of global conservation has failed to bend the curve of biodiversity loss, so we need to transform the ways we govern biodiversity. The UN Convention on Biological Diversity aims to develop and implement a transformative framework for the coming decades. However, the question of what transformative biodiversity governance entails an...

Assessment Report of the Status on the Nexus between Biodiversity and Health, Food and Nutrition and Traditional Medicine in ASEAN Member States (By United Nations University International Institute for Global Health (UNU-IIGH)

Self-reliance is the responsible behavior and the ability of an individual to take care of one's own health using local resources. A substantial proportion of the population use traditional medicine (TM) for primary health care (PHC) in low- and middle-income countries (LMIC). The underlying philosophy of the TM approach is self-reliance due to its...

Calamities throw a critical spotlight on state policies. As the SARS-CoV-2 virus continues to mutate, governments of the world, medical researchers, clinicians, and the citizenry are scrambling for solutions and coming to terms with the COVID-19 pandemic. The deeper question of public response to government policy, however, remains unexplored to a...

eginning with a brief recent history of plural health systems in the Indian context, this is a commentary on the idea of resilience from the perspectives of AYUSH and local health traditions (LHTs) as witnessed historically and during the COVID pandemic. By narrating the AYUSH systems’ experiences during COVID-19, in providing health care and in at...

The current global economic and biomedical perspectives contribute content, strategy, and values to global health systems, like objectification and competition, which encourage the medicalisation of the system. Medicalisation overlooks our interdependence with other beings, the environment and biosphere. In contrast, ancient health traditions like...

“Wellness in worrying times”, a report released by the Asian Development Bank in September 2020 is part of the Asian Development Outlook 2020 Update. One of the key focus areas of the Outlook is the GDP contraction rate of 0.7 per cent in the region for 2020, owing to the pandemic, which the report claims is first of its kind for the region since t...

Relevance of Ayurveda’s Whole Systems Approach to Health and Disease Management in the specific context of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The COVID-19 pandemic is straining health systems globally. The current international biomedical focus for disease control and policies fails to include the resource of a population’s capacity to be self-reliant in its health care practices. The ancient wisdom of Ayurveda (‘the knowledge of life’) and Local Health Traditions (LHTs) in India underst...

Medicinal plants have become of great relevance to the health care of the people, with a vast global population still relying on them. While developing the nation’s most comprehensive, multidisciplinary database on flora, fauna, metals, and minerals of traditional Materia Medica from primary texts over the period 1500 BC to 1900 AD, IMPLAD (Indian...

Background Ayurvedic clinical profiling of COVID-19 is a pre-requisite to develop standalone and integrative treatment approaches. At present, Ayurvedic clinicians do not have access to COVID-19 patients in clinical settings. In these circumstances, a preliminary clinical profiling of COVID-19 based on review of modern medical and classical Ayurved...

Degradation of the environment and loss of biodiversity are negatively affecting human health and well-being. It has been estimated that environmental factors account for about one quarter of the global burden of diseases. Over the years, several conceptual framings that link human health to nature have evolved including Biodiversity and Health, Pl...

The public health landscape is changing globally which offers new avenues for engagements of Ayurveda not just in India but worldwide. Currently, Ayurveda has mainly focused on clinical care and not grown to the challenge of population health through collective institutional responses, the reasons being lack of systematic documentation and evidence...

Abstract Asia represents rich traditional dietary diversity. The rapid diet transition in the region is leading to a high prevalence of non-communicable diseases. The aim of this exploratory study was to document traditional foods and beverages and associated traditional knowledge that have potential positive health impacts, from selected countries...

The core paper and collection of short papers from Mexico, Africa, India and Sweden that make up this study on social-ecological landscapes developed as a South–South collaboration that was extended to include a case in the North. Our concern was to explore how situated, intergenerational knowledge commonly takes a back seat to the conceptual propo...

Globally, the world faces many health-related challenges, from gaps in health literacy to inadequate health systems. Addressing these issues is complex but achievable, with health education and providing safe learning environments being some of the significant contributors to ensuring healthy lives for individuals and communities. The Education for...

Medicinal plants have been an integral part in health care in our country. As is known over 95% of it comes from wild. Some of the very popular and religiously important ones like tulsi, neem, bel etc have also been cultivated in rural homesteads to meet their immediate needs, even as home remedy. Many of the medicinal preparations using such plant...

In this chapter we will mainly focus on biodiversity challenges in relation to human health. We will do this from a science-society interface perspective. What are the important challenges regarding this topic when aiming for policy and society practice relevant reseaerch and action? First, we will briefly introduce the main biodiversity-human heal...

The practice of mapping ecosystem services (ES) in relation to health outcomes is only in its early developing phases. Air purification by vegetation and the resulting avoided respiratory disease burden is a health-related ES that is currently mapped for several areas in the world. Another example is the attenuation of ocean waves by marine ecosyst...

The 1 st International Conference on Biodiversity, Food Security, and Health took place at the Grha Sabha Pramana and University Club Hotel, Gadjah Mada University from Tuesday to Wednesday, 22 to 23 November 2016, and was attended by approximately 125 participants coming from Indonesia, Malaysia, Vietnam, India, Nigeria, Philiphine, Thailand, as w...

People's Biodiversity Register (PBR) documents diverse aspects such as biodiversity and ecosystems services in a location Narwana Village Panchayath, Kangra District, Himachal Pradesh, status of folk (traditional/indigenous/local) knowledge, their applications, history, ongoing changes and forces driving changes in biodiversity resources, gainers a...

Ayurveda, a traditional system of medicine that originated over three millennia ago in the South Asian region, offers extensive insights about food and health based on certain unique conceptual as well as theoretical positions. Health is defined as a state of equilibrium with one’s self (svasthya) but which is inextricably linked to the environment...

There are several models across the country at the local level on diverse nodes of interventions, however concerted policy attention and integrated frameworks/approaches for bringing together multiple institutions and stakeholders are missing. In early 2000, at national level local health traditions appeared in policy documents together with the ef...

The contribution of biodiversity and ecosystem services to our health care needs is significant, both for the development of modern pharmaceuticals and for their uses in traditional medicine. Long before the rise of pharmaceutical development, societies have been drawing on their traditional knowledge, skills and customary practices, using various...

Herbs used by traditional healers for malaria management were documented in the Tumkur district of Karnataka, India. In total, 31 species of plants in 20 families were used. Thirty percent of the herbal remedies contained species in only three plant families: Fabaceae, Piperaceae, and Zingiberaceae. Leaves were the most commonly used plant part (29...

Diversity and plurality are two keywords that represent Indian identity. This relates to varied ecosystems, landscapes, cultural systems, philosophical traditions and practices which make the subcontinent a highly eclectic society. Such a composite culture has given rise to a range of forms and levels of sophistication among knowledge traditions. V...

The article explores the relevance of traditional systems of medicine in the country for improving healthcare for the elderly population. The article highlights certain unique principles and features of traditional medicine in geriatric care by focusing on Ayurveda, the most population traditional medicine system in the country. It takes two fold a...

Aim of the study: To investigate the plants traditionally used for prevention of malaria in Cuttack, Gajapati and Koraput districts of Odisha state, eastern India. Materials and methods: An ethnobotanical survey was carried out among 20 traditional healers who were sampled based on recommendations of local elders and local non-government organiz...

Healthy ecosystems and biological diversity (biodiversity) are sources of various goods and services that nurture life on Earth and enhance human well-being. While the relevance of biodiversity to modern health care delivery may be clear, as seen in the commercial use of biological resources for pharmaceuticals, the relevance of biodiversity to the...

Like any form of knowledge traditional medicine (TRM) is constantly as-serted, debated, reformulated and rearticulated. Scientific evidence is increas-ingly becoming a challenge for the integration of traditional medicine (TRM) in health care. At the same time even proof for the effectiveness of the well-established medicines of India and China is...

Healthy ecosystems and biodiversity are sources of various services that nurture life and enhance human well-being. While the relevance of biodiversity to mainstream health is clear, as seen in commercial use of biological resources by pharmaceuticals, their relevance to the health care of people in insufficiently connected and economically dis...

Japan is situated on the Pacific fire rim and has a large number of hot springs (onsens). There are over 27,000 sources of such springs and the country has a well regulated system of onsens. Within this geographical and cultural peculiarities certain unique traditional health practices have evolved, prominent among which is Touji or onsen therapy....

The United Nations’ Decade of Education for Sustainable Development (DESD) aims, among other objectives, to foster and promote the mainstreaming of intercultural approaches within a social learning process through multi-sectoral, collaborative and interdisciplinary methods. Biological as well as cultural diversity are inherently linked and form an...

Conceptual development in the theory of externalities have opened up several policy options for their internalization including payment towards environmental services. Hence as externalities are social costs, accountability is crucial in increasing environmental awareness and for collective action through education and extension more so in developi...

It is a training manual for EIU and ESD composed of an explanation on the thematic shift and the discourses related to EIU, a pedagogical exploration of EIU, an interlinking exploration between EIU and ESD, an updated guide to recommendable modules, and a collection of activities to match with each module. This manual is primarily targeted at teach...

The Indian subcontinent has a rich ethnoveterinary health tradition owing to the large agriculture based livelihoods and rich biodiversity. Due to various social, economic and political factors this tradition is facing the threat of rapid erosion. A Programme to revitalise the ethnoveterinary traditions was initiated in 2001 by the Foundation for R...

Malaria continues to plague the people worldwide, transmitted by a viral parasite carried by mosquitoes. Vaccines and pesticides have combated the disease in the past, but the disease adapts and becomes resistant to drugs, and pesticides such as DDT hurt the environment while killing mosquitoes. So, what has been done to harness this powerful epide...

A s malaria is one of the most deadly infectious diseases, the increasing resistance to modern anti-malarial drugs is alarming. Besides, poor people often cannot afford modern drugs, or lack access to them because of limited medical infrastructure. Therefore, traditional medicines could be an important resource in fighting malaria. This article dis...

A L E I S A I N D I A • S E P T E M B E R 2 0 0 7 2 When we conceptualized the theme of LEISA and health, we felt that there are evidences, which indicate the link between LEISA approaches, health, and livelihood improvements. Your response strengthened our belief. We are happy to share the experiences shared by LEISA practitioners establishing the...

Traditional health sciences (THS) of various countries have evolved within different epistemologies and perspectives on disease, cause and cure. The epistemic framework, principles, concepts and practice are quite different from those of Western biomedicine. The traditional Indian sciences or shastras as they are called, possess qualitative standar...

raditional medical systems have evolved within different epistemologies and perspectives on disease, cause and cure. The epistemic framework, principles, concepts and practice are quite different from those of modern medicine. Traditional Indian sciences or “shastras”, as they are called, possess qualitative standards that are derived by a subjecti...

Bonesetting is one of the key specialties of local health traditions (LHTs) in rural India. Because the current government and private institutional facilities are neither adequate nor suitable to cope with the patient load particularly in rural areas and because the cost of diagnosis, medicine and surgery in modern hospitals is high, people depend...

It is a well-known fact that throughtout our country there exists numerous folk traditions of local health care in all walks of life. There are two schematically distinguished of health in India. One refers to the written traditions of the great classical systems of Ayurveda, Siddha, Unani and the other one is orally transmitted folk practices, whi...

The article outlines Ayurvedic Perspective on Malaria

In Chapter 6 we described the first phase of the programme that the Foundation for Revitalisation of Local Health Traditions (FRLHT) initiated in 1998-2000. In this chapter, we focus on the second phase of the programme. Phase-II: Rapid Assessment of LHTs (RALHT) The objective in phase II was to develop a rapid assessment protocol to identify the b...

Traditional systems of medicine make use of a wide spectrum of natural resources as part of their pharmacopoeia. It is beyond the scope of this book to examine all the various systems and their use of these resources. But it is important to know how the resources are studied, the history of their use and the general principles by which they are inc...

It is unfortunate but true that international cooperation in ‘science’, defined in its broadest sense as approaches to a systematic study of nature, does not exist across different world cultures. Whether Chinese, Indian, African, South American or Western, scientists today are all members of the same scientific club. And while scientific instituti...

In this chapter we describe a programme that represents a first step toward the renewal of medicinal plant cultivation in households, and also perhaps a first step in the direction of health security. The programme eventually included 60,000 households in rural Tamil Nadu, a state in southern India. It involved the training of several volunteer gro...

The paper gives a brief introduction to the Ayurvedic system and some of the problems faced by it especially with respect to identification of drugs.

According to Ayurveda, perfect health is a situation where the structural and psycho physiological principles of the body, like digestive and excretory mechanism, the body tissues, the organs of sense and action and the mind, all are in equilibrium and in a contented state. When all these principles are in equilibrium they maintain the health of th...

The article highlights the use of fauna in Ayurveda system of medicine. (Unnikrishnan PM: Animals in Ayurveda. Amruth. 1998, 1-15. Suppl 1)

The non-availability of reliable and standardized drugs, their high cost, and ambiguity in the identity of the ingredients used are a few of the major problems encountered today in the utilization of compound drugs in Ayurveda. There is thus an urgent need to reemphasize the use of single plant drug formulations recorded in the classical texts. The...

A major problem, essentially political in nature, that non-Western societies in the colonial and neo-colonial era have had to contend with in any serious evaluation of their indigenous sciences is the common claim of all Western scientists and philosophers that, 'after all, science is one, universal and unique'. Thus, while it may be possible to co...