Astral Codex Ten

Ayurvedic

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Ayurvedic

Article

Ayurvedic is a recurring concept in the Astral Codex Ten archive, appearing 2 times across 2 issues between October 05, 2022 and October 26, 2022. The archive places it in contexts such as “Bacopa and ashwagandha are Ayurvedic (Indian traditional medicine) herbs”; “11% of “Chinese, Ayurvedic, and marine” products had high arsenic levels”. It most often appears alongside Ashwagandha, Bacopa, Chicago.

Metadata

  • Category: Concepts
  • Mention count: 2
  • Issue count: 2
  • First seen: October 05, 2022
  • Last seen: October 26, 2022

Appears In

Source Context

Recovered passages from the original issue text. When the raw archive preserved outbound links inside the source passage, they are listed directly under the quote.

How Trustworthy Are Supplements?
October 05, 2022 · Original source
Bacopa and ashwagandha are Ayurvedic (Indian traditional medicine) herbs used for stress. I’m listing them as hard mode because turning it into a supplement usually involves extracting active chemicals (called withanolides) from the plant. If there were problems with herbal medicines, this would be where we would expect to find them. Labdoor has bacopa but not ashwagandha, and ConsumerLab has vice versa, so I’m combining them for this investigation.
Highlights From The Comments On Supplement Labeling
October 26, 2022 · Original source
The only clue they give us as to which products were the offenders is that 11% of “Chinese, Ayurvedic, and marine” products had high arsenic levels, compared to only 3% of “North American excluding Chinese/Ayurvedic/marine” products. But if we believe them, that rules out that it’s all stuff like Ton Shen.
On the other hand, the worst Chinese/Ayurvedic/marine supplement had 2000 mcg of arsenic in it. That’s 2 mg. For context, a medium dose of the antipsychotic risperidone is 2 mg/day. So these supplements contained as much arsenic as a risperidone pill does of risperidone. How do you end up with that much arsenic in a pill? I think some traditional Chinese medicines might, uh, be arsenic. In fact, the study mentions that one traditional Chinese remedy is cinnabar, ie mercury sulfide. Isn’t this how Qin Shi Huang Di died?
Inline links: be arsenic
So my guess is that taking reputable North American supplements gives you about the same heavy metal risk as spices or juices, and taking Chinese or Ayurvedic supplements can potentially have a much higher risk if you’re not careful. My guess is that taking Ayurvedic supplements that have been processed and Westernized and are produced by Western companies (eg ashwagandha) is fine, but I can’t prove it.