Bangalore: Bhaswati Bhattacharya, a renowned Indian American scholar is being sent to India by the United States, to explore various fields of ayurveda. She will be doing her research from the city of Varanasi, at the Banaras Hindu University, reports PTI.

Bhattacharya will be learning the concept of Ojas, which is related to the understanding of immunity. U.S. inhabitants are mostly prone to diseases related to immune system.

"As a scientist and a physician in the United States, I want to know why no one has looked at Ojas and the prescriptions that are given in Ayurveda for these diseases when many of them are so useful for the kind of diseases that plaguing in our family and in our population," Bhattacharya told PTI in an interview.

 Bhattacharya from Kolkata is a practicing doctor trained in pharmacology and nerve science. According to her, the mainstream medical system is posing many challenges to ayurveda.

"Mainstream medicine does not want to accept anything that's not going to propagate its own profits," she said in response to a question.

"Complementary medicine has been increasing in popularity since last decade. So huge number of people here spending lot of money out of pockets for everything from acupuncture to supplements, massage to yoga, all these things which they use instead going to their doctor for their healthcare. There is huge amount of that. So masses of American population need to know more about other medical systems," she said.

Bhattacharya holds a baccalaureate degree from the University of Pennsylvania and a master’s degree in pharmacology. Later on she did masters in international public health from Harvard School of Public Health.

Bhattacharya has worked as Clinical Assistant Professor of Family Medicine at Weill-Cornell Medical College and as Adjunct Assistant Professor of Family Medicine at Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York.