Prakriti phenotypes as a stratifier of gut microbiome: A new frontier in personalized medicine?

Abstract

Ayurveda has a rich history and its significance woven deeply in the Indian culture. The concept of prakriti (a person’s “nature” or constitutional type determined by the proportion of three doshas, namely - vata , pitta and kapha ) in Ayurveda is deeply rooted in personalized health management. While the attributes of prakriti has been established to have a genomic basis, there is dearth of elaborate evidences linking prakriti with manifestation of diseases. Next generation sequencing studies have provided a causal link between variation in the gut microbiome and its effect on an individual’s fitness. Separately, reports have identified gut microbial patterns associated with several host variables such as geography, age, diet and extreme prakriti phenotypes. Recently, few reports have identified a “core gut microbiome” consisting of Bacteroides, Faecalibacterium, Prevotella and Ruminococcus prevalent across the Indian population; however, a few bacterial genera were specifically enriched in certain prakritis . Hence, in this review we aim to analyse the role of prakriti variations on dysbiosis of the gut microbiome and concomitantly its effect on human health. We suggest that prakriti phenotyping can function as a potential stratifier of the gut microbiome in a given population and may provide evidence for the conceptual framework of personalized medicine in Ayurvedic system of medicine.

Jatharagni and Prakriti of young Indian adult population: A descriptive cross-sectional study

“…The Vata individuals have irregular digestion patterns and the Kapha individuals have the least metabolic capacity among the three Prakriti types [ 11 , 12 ]. Among the participants of Vatakapha, most of them had Mandagni though there is a dominance of both Vata and Kapha Doshas.…”

Ayurgenomics and Modern Medicine

“…The quality of life was found to be better in in Pitta-type patients [19]. Finally, several papers have focused on the connection between the microbiome composition and Prakriti, and found a significant correlation between specific bacteria groups and Prakriti [20][21][22].…”

Unravelling the gut-lung axis: insights into microbiome interactions and Traditional Indian Medicine's perspective on optimal health

“…The Prakriti assignment entails phenotyping a person based on their physical type, dietary and bowel habits, ability to fight off sickness, healing, memory capacity, metabolism, and other traits (Dey and Pahwa 2014 ). Thus, finding distinctive Prakriti -specific microbial fingerprints is an intriguing foundation for customized therapy (Jnana et al 2020 ).…”

“…Thus, variations in Prakriti are very likely to affect gut microbiome dysbiosis. Therefore, Prakriti phenotyping, as done in Āyurveda by precisely associating different Prakriti types with phenotypic attributes, could be an effective strategy to predict the stratification of the gut microbiota in a specific population (Jnana et al 2020 ). In a modern context, these phenotypic attributes identified by Āyurveda for each Prakriti type have been validated through metagenomics studies (Chauhan et al 2018 , Mobeen et al 2019 ).…”