Amar was formulated by Late Vaidya Chandra Prakash ji from Meerut using Copper, Mercury and Sulphur in the seventies. Incidentally, the formulation brought miraculous recovery in an advanced stage patient of pancreatic cancer. Late Vaidya Chandra Prakash ji Later, Vaidya Balendu Prakash (his son) revived the formula and observed its miraculous effect in treating certain diseases. He noted that the formulation brought complete and sustainable relief to patients of Recurrent Acute/ Chronic Pancreatitis (RACP) and started documenting his clinical practice for these indications following good clinical practice guidelines. This booklet is aimed at disseminating the information collected from the clinical pra tice and scientific developments so far. We are grateful to the following for their contribution towards the making of this booklet: Concept & Editor in Chief: Vaidya Balendu Prakash Patient Consultation & Treatment: Vaidya Balendu Prakash, Vaidya Shikha Prakash Patient Counselling & Data Generation: Ms Shakshi Sharma, Ms Kajol Lal, Ms Neha Negi, Ms Karuna Swarup, Ms Ragini Verma Preparation of Medicines: Mrs Gopa Indu, Mr Devendu Prakash Consultancy: Ms Megha Prakash Data Analysis, Content & Editing: Mrs Sneha Tiwari Sati Design & Layout: Ballabh & Hari Contents Foreword 1 Messages from Dignitaries 3 Editorial 8 The Pancreas and Pancreatic Disorders 11 Pancreatitis – Historical Perspective 12 Pancreatitis 15 Causes of Pancreatitis 16 Conventional Treatment and Prognosis 16 Our Experience with Pancreatitis (data from clinical practice) 17 Variants of Pancreatitis 26 Overall observations 52 Lowering of CA19-9 levels 53 Ayurvedic Treatment for Pancreatitis 57 Amar 58 Scientific Developments 60 Publications 63 Testimonials from Beneficiaries 100 Events Gallery 145 Media Buzz 148 References 150 Dr VM Katoch MD, FNASc, FASc, FAMS , FNA NASI-ICMR Chair on Public Health Research at Rajasthan University of Health Sciences (RUHS), Jaipur; President, JIPMER Puducherry; President, AIIMS, Madurai; Chairman, Lepra Society; Former Secretary, Department of Health Research, Govt of India and Director-General, Indian Council of Medical Research E-mail: [email protected] Foreword Pancreatitis, both acute and chronic pancreatitis, is an important clinical and public health problem. Considering the variations in clinical course and pathophysiology several sub types have been de- scribed. Overall, it is a dreaded disease and affects personal, professional and social life of individ- uals and their families with substantial financial burden. Though modern system of medicine has developed good methods to deal with emergencies due to pancreatitis but a fair number of patients continue to show progression of the disease and show recurrences. Overall, the disease is responsible for significant morbidity and mortality in severe forms. In the aforesaid background, I came across the work of renowned Rasa Vaidya, Balendu Prakash, few years back. Being a man of health and research, I had initially been sceptical about his work on the disease but his perseverance and constantly presenting the meticulously generated experimental and clinical data compelled me to look into his claims with a rational approach. After getting convinced of his work, I wrote foreword for his booklet ‘Chronic Pancreatitis – No More A Fear’ in September 2018 and now for his new booklet with the data of 1111 cases of Pancreatitis, ‘Indigenous Treatment for Pancreatitis – Observational Clinical Study’. Vaidya Balendu Prakash and his team has put in lot of efforts in understanding the process charac- terization and standardization of the Ayurvedic Mineral Complex in association with the scientists of Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru. Here, he was able to add science to his formulation by showing transformation of metals into mineral complex without any free metal in these pepaations. Metals are known toxins for human body. To determine the toxicity of this product Vaidya Balendu subjected the aforesaid formulation to acute, sub-acute and chronic toxicity studies. The study was carried at a Mysuru based clinical research organization and the formulation was found completely safe. Abdominal pain is one of the major indicatives of an attack of Pancreatitis but pain-relieving effect cannot be considered as the only indicator of the efficacy of drugs used to treat the disease. Hence, he opted to study the Pancreatitis protective properties of the formulation in L-Arginine induced Pancre- atitis in animal models in two consequent studies. Both the studies showed that the formulation has significant pancreatitis protective properties at specified doses.It is noteworthy that Vaidya Balendu Prakash has chosen a scientific path of bringing traditional Ayurvedic practice of Rasa-Shastra into 1 main stream by adopting scientific approach of development, testing and evaluation following ap- proved regulatory guidelines for such preparations. He has put his time and own resources for ex- ploring the science behind this treatment. He has published his findings in scientific journals and also continues to share his clinical findings with all walks of society ranging from academia at national and international levels to end users. Besides directly serving the sufferers at his “Padaav”, he continues to strengthen the science and evidence by attempting to carry out proper clinical trials in partnership with modern science institutions as well as promoting multidisciplinary research by working with pres- tigious universities. I am happy to write this preface once again for his now vastly expanded work over the last 2-3 years and convey my best wishes to him & team. I am happy to reiterate that this will be a good example to other innovators who are working to translate the traditional knowledge into safe & effective products and practices by following the acceptable scientific approach of knowledge generation and putting it into practice. (VM Katoch) 2 3 4 5 6 7 Editorial Rasa Shastra is a specialized branch of Ayurveda which evolved from 1st to 5th century in India. The branch deals with therapeutics of substances of plant, animal and mineral origin, which are moderate to severely toxic in raw form. There are various methodologies to transform them into non-toxic therapeutic form. Howev- er, use of mercury and heavy metals in ayurvedic med- icines has always remained a controversial issue. There is dearth of adverse reports regarding the toxic effect of metals and minerals in ayurvedic drugs. While ayurvedic community goes into playing defensive mode by claiming that appropriate processing of met- als and mercury transform those into non-toxic form, the non-ayurvedic community never recognises ayurvedic formulation as medicines. In fact, these formulations have gradually been categorised as food supplements or essentials for wellness. On the other hand, there are many incidences or stories regarding the miraculous lifesaving effects ofRasa-aushadhies . Ayurveda was largely practiced under Guru-Shishya Parampara at the Gurukuls/ Ashramas/ Mathas in ancient India. Meerut based Late Vaidya Chandra Prakash Ji learnt the applied aspects of Rasa Shas- tra from his Guru Maharaj Ji, who was a master of Yoga and Rasa Shastra. He had also obtained basic degree of “Bhishak” from SD College, Lahore (now in Pakistan). He started his clinical practise by using his own prepared Ayurvedic medicines with more emphasis on Rasa-aushadhies. Gradually he earned reputation in treating certain forms of cancer, acute and chronic/ relapsing communicable diseases. In mid seventies, he started preparing a formulation using processed copper, mercury and sulphur. Firsthe amalgamated these in the solution of Luffa echinate and Clitoria ternatea in lemon juice and then subjected the mixture to the concept of repeated Gandhak jarana using Nalika Damru Yantra. The afore- said processing when done repeatedly lead to Gandhak jeerna parad (assimilated form of sulphur with mercury). The said formulation named as Amar was incidentally administered to a terminally ill patient of pancreatic disorder. That particular batch of Amar also helped in bringing complete and sustainable relief to few other patients suffering with advanced stage of solid tumors. Unfortunately, Late Vaidya could not succeed in reproducing the identical batches due to lack of infor- mation and resources for developing Standards Operating Procedures (SOPs). This formulation could be revived in early eighties when his fifth son (Vaidya Balendu Prakash) who was then a second-year student of BAMS (Ayurvedacharya) assisted him in the preparation of medicines. A fact-finding committee headed by Dr. R.C.D. Nautiyal, the then deputy Director of Central Council for Research and Ayurveda and Siddha, Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, Government of India 8 acknowledged the efficacy of successful treatment of certain cancers and recommended for further researches for its scientific development in 1983. The pioneer work of Late Vaidya was carried forward after his untimely death in 1984. A retrospective analysis of decades long clinical practise revealed that Amar has been able to bring miraculous re- coveries to well diagnosed cases of recurring acute and chronic pancreatitis with sustainable results. Later, the clinical data of each and every enrolled patient was documented following Comte’s model of research. A total number of 48 patient were enrolled between January 1997 and September 2014 and these observations were brought to the public domain in the