ROLE OF AMALAKI RASAYAN AS AN ANTIOXIDANT IN OXIDATIVE STRESS

Ayurveda is the science of life. The main aim of Ayurveda is to maintain the health of a healthy person and to cure the diseased person. For the maintenance of the health of a healthy person, rasayan chikitsa is advised in Ayurve- da. Rasayan chikitsa is the separate branch of Ayurveda, which deals with various aspects of preventive health care. In today’s modern era, the incidence of lifestyle disorders like hypertension, obesity, diabetes mellitus and cardiovascular diseases increased, because of altered dietary and living patterns. Oxidative stress may be respon- sible for most of the diseases. Lack of dietary antioxidants supplements and generation of free radicals induces disease associated with oxidative stress. Oxidative stress is essentially an imbalance between the production of free radicals and the ability of the body to counteract or detoxify their harmful effects through neutralization by antioxidants. Free radicals contain unpaired electrons, and they are unstable and highly reactive. They donate or accept an electron from other molecules, therefore behaving as oxidants. An antioxidant is a stable molecule, enough to donate an electron to rampaging free radical and neutralize it, thus reducing its capacity to damage. Ac-cording to Ayurveda, Amalaki is the best rasayan, tridoshhar. As per modern science, it contains the largest amount of vitamin C (6oomg), and vitamin C has the best antioxidant property. Amalaki rasayan plays an im- portant role as an antioxidant and thus relives oxidative stress, thus helpful in the prevention of many diseases.Keywords: Rasayan, antioxidant, free radicals, Amalaki