Reading an Ayurvedic formulation
A short, honest guide to what the ingredient lists on this site actually mean — and what they do not.
Why there are so many herbs
Classical Ayurvedic preparations are compounds, not single extracts. A liver formulation might carry eight or nine botanicals at different quantities. The logic is that the herbs modify one another: some are the main actors, some support digestion or absorption, and some temper the others.
This is why you will see a long list with wildly different doses — 750 mg of one herb next to 200 mg of another. The small numbers are not filler.
What "per 10 ml" means
Syrup formulations state quantities per 10 ml, which is the reference dose. It is not necessarily the dose you should take. That comes from the approved label on your pack, or from your practitioner.
Sanskrit and botanical names
Each herb on this site is given twice: the traditional name it is known by in practice, and its botanical name. The botanical name is the one to search if you want to read the research literature, and the one to show a doctor who is checking for interactions.
What Ayurveda is not
It is not a replacement for a diagnosis. A herbal preparation cannot tell you whether the pain is a gallstone. If you have symptoms you have not had investigated, get them investigated.
It is also not automatically free of consequence because it is herbal. Some botanicals interact with prescription medicines, and some are inadvisable during pregnancy or with particular conditions.
Questions worth asking about any product
- Does it publish the complete formulation, or only a few "key" ingredients?
- Are quantities given, or just a list of names?
- Is the manufacturing licence stated and verifiable?
- Does the claim on the front match what the label on the back is allowed to say?