Hyperacidity and Ayurveda: Causes

Hyperacidity and Ayurveda: Causes

To understand the disease amla pitta, one has to understand the concept of 'agni'. Ayurveda has described this agni as fire of life. It has been given a pivotal place in the delicate balance between health and disease. In other words, 'agni' is the fire that cooks or digests the food.

A normal 'agni' means a healthy person and conversely, an abnormal agni is a sure pointer to disease.

At times, this 'agni' may be impaired due to intellectual blasphemy (prajnaaparaadha), unwholesome conjunction of sense organs with their objects (asaatmyendriyaartha samyoga) and vagaries of weather and time (kaala or parinaama). This impaired 'agni' shows effect on 'pitta', the fiery energy of the body responsible for transformation. 'Amla pitta' is the by-product of this defective process.

“It is difficult to produce fire either without fire logs or with too many fire logs occupying the whole furnace.”

The same is the case with digestive fire. This will be hampered either with low amounts (mandaagni) or with high amounts (teekshnaagni). Amla pitta is the resultant of teekshnaagni, says Ayurveda.

Causative factors for Teekshanaagni:

• Stressful daily routine.
•  Insufficient sleep at night.
•  Irregular meal times or skipping meals.
•  Eating too late at night.
•  Spicy food habits like pizza, burger, chinese food.
•  Oily foods, pickles.
• Salty and sour foods like chips .
• Over eating of stale, fermented foods(bakery foods, idli, dosa, etc).
• Sleeping immediately after meals.
• Lack of rest , fast moving lifestyle.
• Suppression of urges
• Too much of worries.
• Walking for long hours in hot sun very often, or working near hot areas .

All these above factors result in excessive increase of ‘Pitta dosha’ which tries to find its way out of the body either through oral or rectal pathway and along with it exhibits symptoms of Amlapitta.

Next: Hyperacidity and Ayurveda: Symptoms

Next article: Hyperacidity and Ayurveda: Preventive measures and remedies