AYURVEDA-BASED PRAKRITI CLASSIFICATION AND ITS ASSOCIATION WITH GENETIC VARIATIONS: A MOLECULAR GENETICS INVESTIGATION

Abstract

Traditional Indian medical practice, known as Ayurveda, stresses individualized medicine using the notion of Prakriti, an individual psycho-physiological constitution. Prakriti is determined by the dominance of one of the three doshas, namely Vata, Pitta, and Kapha, and it supposedly affects metabolism, immunological functions, susceptibility to diseases, and responses to therapy. With the rapid development of molecular genetics and precision medicine, more interest has been paid to studying the biological background of these constitutional classifications. This paper provides a review of the literature on Ayurveda Prakriti classification, focusing on its genetic basis and the development of Ayur genomics, a discipline bridging classical Ayurveda and contemporary genomics. In recent years, associations between the types of Prakriti and particular genotypes, gene expression patterns, epigenetic alterations, and other molecular features have been found, proving the existence of the biological foundation of constitutions. The advances in genomics, transcriptomics, systems biology, artificial intelligence, and computational modelling have contributed significantly to the scientific study of Prakriti. Prakriti-dependent classification has also proved to be useful in predicting diseases, pharmacogenomics, nutrition, and precision medicine. Although some positive results have been obtained, the issues of standardization, methodology, and large-scale validation still need to be addressed. In general, the combination of Ayurvedic constitutional profiling with molecular genetics offers an innovative tool for studying the biological variability of humans and developing personalized healthcare. Further multidisciplinary research can enable the formulation of evidence-based precision medicine solutions based on ancient medical traditions and modern scientific knowledge.