Ayurveda eru óhefðbundnar lækningar sem eiga rætur sínar að rekja til Indlands.

Samkvæmt Ayurvedakenningunum eru fimm kraftar að verki í einstaklingnum „prakriti“ sem séu þeir sömu og í náttúrunni: ljósvakinn, loft, vatn, eldur og jörð. Vissir kraftar eigi að geta komið á jafnvægi í einstaklingnum og það sé jafnvægi þeirra sem stuðli að góðri heilsu. Síðan séu þættir sem hafi lífeðlisfræðileg áhrif á þessa frumkrafta.

Nafnið er komið úr sanskrít og er samsett af orðunum „ayur“ sem þýðir „líf“ og „veda“ sem þýðir „vísindi eða þekking“. Til eru sögulegar heimildir um kerfið í fornum ritum sem kölluð eru einu nafni Veda-ritin.

Ayurveda telst til gervivísinda.[1][2][3] Nokkurt magn Ayurveda-náttúrulyfja inniheldur þungmálma.

Tilvísanir

breyta
  1. Kaufman, Allison B.; Kaufman, James C., ritstjórar (2018). Pseudoscience: The Conspiracy Against Science. MIT Press. bls. 293. ISBN 978-0-262-03742-6. „Ayurveda, a traditional Indian medicine, is the subject of more than a dozen, with some of these "scholarly" journals devoted to Ayurveda alone..., others to Ayurveda and some other pseudoscience....Most current Ayurveda research can be classified as "tooth fairy science," research that accepts as its premise something not scientifically known to exist....Ayurveda is a long-standing system of beliefs and traditions, but its claimed effects have not been scientifically proven. Most Ayurveda researchers might as well be studying the tooth fairy. The German publisher Wolters Kluwer bought the Indian open-access publisher Medknow in 2011....It acquired its entire fleet of journals, including those devoted to pseudoscience topics such as An International Quarterly Journal of Research in Ayurveda.“
  2. Semple D, Smyth R (2019). Chapter 1: Thinking about psychiatry. bls. 24. doi:10.1093/med/9780198795551.003.0001. ISBN 978-0-19-879555-1. „These pseudoscientific theories may...confuse metaphysical with empirical claims (e.g....Ayurvedic medicine)“ (áskriftar þörf)
  3. Quack, Johannes (2011). Disenchanting India: Organized Rationalism and Criticism of Religion in India. Oxford University Press. bls. 213, 3. ISBN 9780199812608. „ordinary members told me how they practice some of these pseudosciences, either privately or as certified doctors themselves, most often Ayurveda.“