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. 2015 Oct 29:5:15786.
doi: 10.1038/srep15786.

Genome-wide analysis correlates Ayurveda Prakriti

Periyasamy Govindaraj  1 , Sheikh Nizamuddin  1 , Anugula Sharath  1 , Vuskamalla Jyothi  1 , Harish Rotti  2 , Ritu Raval  2 , Jayakrishna Nayak  3 , Balakrishna K Bhat  3 , B V Prasanna  3 , Pooja Shintre  4 , Mayura Sule  4 , Kalpana S Joshi  4 , Amrish P Dedge  4 , Ramachandra Bharadwaj  5 , G G Gangadharan  5 , Sreekumaran Nair  6 , Puthiya M Gopinath  2 , Bhushan Patwardhan  7 , Paturu Kondaiah  8 , Kapaettu Satyamoorthy  2 , Marthanda Varma Sankaran Valiathan  2 , Kumarasamy Thangaraj  1
Affiliations

Genome-wide analysis correlates Ayurveda Prakriti

Periyasamy Govindaraj et al. Sci Rep. .

Abstract

The practice of Ayurveda, the traditional medicine of India, is based on the concept of three major constitutional types (Vata, Pitta and Kapha) defined as "Prakriti". To the best of our knowledge, no study has convincingly correlated genomic variations with the classification of Prakriti. In the present study, we performed genome-wide SNP (single nucleotide polymorphism) analysis (Affymetrix, 6.0) of 262 well-classified male individuals (after screening 3416 subjects) belonging to three Prakritis. We found 52 SNPs (p ≤ 1 × 10(-5)) were significantly different between Prakritis, without any confounding effect of stratification, after 10(6) permutations. Principal component analysis (PCA) of these SNPs classified 262 individuals into their respective groups (Vata, Pitta and Kapha) irrespective of their ancestry, which represent its power in categorization. We further validated our finding with 297 Indian population samples with known ancestry. Subsequently, we found that PGM1 correlates with phenotype of Pitta as described in the ancient text of Caraka Samhita, suggesting that the phenotypic classification of India's traditional medicine has a genetic basis; and its Prakriti-based practice in vogue for many centuries resonates with personalized medicine.

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Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1. Box-plot representing the Prakriti proportion of subjects with Vata (94), Pitta (75) and Kapha (93) dominant characteristics.
(A) Average percentage of Vata is 67%, while Pita and Kapha are 12% and 18.5%, respectively. (B) Average percentage of Pita is 65%, while Vata and Kapha are 12% and 17%, respectively. (C) Average percentage of Kapha is 70%, while Vata and Pita are 12% and 17%, respectively.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Principal component analysis (PCA) with 52 SNPs that showed p-value of <1 × 10-5 (A) PCA of Prakriti individuals showing three clusters (Vata, Pitta, Kapha), despite their linguistic, ethnic and geographical diversity. (B) PCA projection of Indian population samples with Prakriti individuals.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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