Satvik Food: Ancient Indian Diet Keeps Heart Problems Away

October 30, 2006
By Syed Akbar
Hyderabad, Oct 30: Intake of Vedic diet comprising fresh uncooked vegetables and raw sprouts will stabilise the heart beat and prevent arrhythmias, which often lead to death.
Arrhythmia is a health problem affecting the electrical system of the cardiac muscle and causes the heart to beat slowly or pump blood less effectively. A research study on various diets mentioned in the ancient Indian texts revealed that those who take a diet comprising vegetables, grains, sprouts, minimum quantity of oil and raw foods showed a rhythmic heart beat.
The study, conducted by Dr P Ravi Shankar and others at the Russian Medical Academy, showed that cells of the same tissue would exist with different resting potentials depending on the dietary intake as prescribed in the Indian system of medicine.
As many as 75 male Wistar rats were used in the study. They were divided into five groups each comprising 15 rats. Three groups of rats were fed with different types of diets referred to in the ancient Indian Scriptures. The other two groups were taken as control groups. The researchers used the action potentials in the heart muscle as a reference parameter. The action potentials showed an average resting potential of about - 84.5 milli volts. At the end of the study, the rats were killed and action potentials were measured from their intact hearts.
The values of action potentials in the rats fed with a diet made up of raw vegetables and grains were very close to the resting potential. The action potentials of those fed with spicy foods had varied between 86.5 milli volts and 93.5 milli volts. The third group which received cooked foods with lot of oil and sweets had action potentials between 105.28 milli volts and 112.28 milli volts.
"The findings prove that the more the resting potential, the lesser the external
stimulus needed to excite and generate an action potential which gives a greater understanding of arrhythmias in cardiac muscles and various nervous and other disorders," the study pointed out