ABSTRACT
Ancient medical practices provide novel paradigms to understand chronic neurodegenerative diseases due to their unique outlook of disease pathology. Ayurveda is the ancient medical wisdom of India that gives novel and powerful insights for the preemptive and therapeutic treatment of neurodegenerative diseases. Ayurveda describes the disease pathology as being derived from the accumulation of vata or air in the brain. In general, treatments include both internal and external practices and herbal therapies to reduce the amount of air in the body in addition to stimulating the central nervous system (medhya rasayanas). There are also traditional formulations composed of several herbs whose combined action against various aspects of the disease pathology effectively rescues the symptoms of the disease. Due to the failure of modern allopathic medicine to effectively treat chronic neurodegenerative diseases, many people are turning to alternative natural therapies. It has been shown that natural therapies are equally or more effective than modern medicines with a longer efficacy and zero side effects. The following summarizes the latest research on a battery of Ayurvedic herbs that were traditionally used in the treatment of Parkinson?s, Alzheimer?s and Huntington?s disease and the potential these herbs have to become modern therapies.
