A CLINICAL STUDY ON THE EFFICACY OF VARISARA DHAUTI (SHANKHA PRAKSHALANA) IN IMPROVING THE QUALITY OF LIFE AMONG APPARENT-LY HEALTHY INDIVIDUALS

Relevance: In this modern era, faulty dietary habits such as increased intake of processed food, low-fibre diet, and sedentary lifestyle, along with increasing stress and anxiety, can lead to a harmful impact on quality of life. Thus, Varisara Dhauti (Shankha Prakshalana) may be helpful because it helps in the natural cleansing of the gastrointestinal tract. Also, it is a costless procedure because only warm saline water is required. Aim: To study the efficacy of Varisara Dhauti or Shankhaprakshalana in improving the quality of life of apparently healthy in-dividuals. Materials and Methods: The WHOQOL-BREF questionnaire was adopted to evaluate the effective-ness of Varisara Dhauti (Shankha Prakshalana) in improving the Quality of life among 100 healthy individuals. One hundred healthy individuals were equally divided into two groups, 50 in each. In Group I, Varisara Dhauti (Shankha Prakshalana) was performed, and the procedure was repeated every 4 weeks for 8 weeks. In Group II, study subjects were observed for general health profiles. Results: In Group I, improvement in Domain 1(Physical Health) and Domain 2 (Psychological) was highly significant (p<0.001), improvement in Domain 3 (Social relationships) was moderately significant (p=0.001), and the quality of life of all the three domains im-proved from moderate to good. Improvement in Domain 4 (Environment) was insignificant (p=0.080), and there was no change in quality of life. Discussion: It was found that after the procedure, an excellent response was found in Domain 2 (Psychological).