Benefits of Yoga

Can claims of yoga's health benefits stand up to scientific scrutiny? The impulse to legitimize alternative medicine comes not only from some yogis, but from the U.S. government. The National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM), under the National Health umbrella, wields a $78 million budget to promote rigorous scientific research that will bridge the gap between the broad use of complementary and alternative practices and the paucity of data demonstrating their safety and efficiency. Researchers pursuing the health benefits of yogic practices must compete not only for funding, but also to get their work published in reputable journals. You can be sure that the words "yoga" and "meditation" don't appear often in the pages of the Journal of the American Medical Association, Allery and Asthma Proceedings, or Stroke (a journal of the American Heart Association) -- but it does happen!

Asthma. At the Northern Colorado Allergy Asthma Clinic in Fort Collins, a controlled clinical study of university students (19 to 52 years old) with asthma concluded that yoga techniques seem beneficial as an adjunct to the medical management of asthma, according to the 1998 published abstract.

Cardiovascular Risk Factors. A three-month residential study trating patients with yoga, meditation and a vegetarian diet at Hanover Medical University in Germany found a substantial reduction in risk factors for heart disease (including blood pressure and cholesterol) in participants, according to an abstract published in Acta physiologica Scandinavica Supplementum in 1997.

Carpal Tunnel Syndrome. A randomized, single-blind, controlled clinical trial at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine in Philadelphia concluded, "In this preliminary study, a yoga-based regimen was more effective than wrist splintering or no treatment in relieving some symptoms and signs of carpal tunnel syndrome." The study, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association in 1998, also noted that "Subjects in the yoga groups had significant improvement in grip strength and pain reduction, but changes in grip strength and pain were not significant for control subjects."

Arthritis. Also at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, a yoga-treated group with osteoarthritis of the hands improved significantly more than the control group in "pain during activity, tenderness, and finger range of motion." The randomized controlled clinical trial, published in the Journal of Rheumatology in 1994, concluded, "This yoga-derived program was effective in providing relief in hand osteoarthritis..."

Source: Dr. Timothy McCall - Yoga Journal's medical editor

 

 A study from the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center released promising results in 2005 regarding the ability of yoga to aid overweight subjects in losing weight. 15,500 men and women between the ages of 53 and 57 were queried regarding their weight and diet histories and physical activity from the ages of 45 to 55. It turned out that study subjects who were overweight and did yoga at least once a week had lost five pounds over the 10 year period, while their non-yoga counterparts had gained weight. (Yoga practitioners of normal weight did tend to gain weight over the years, but people who didn't practice gained more.)

The reason? Lead researcher, Alan Kristal, a yogi who is also a professor of epidemiology at the University of Washington School of Public Health, says it is because yoga builds mindfulness. "You learn to feel when you're full, and you don't like the feeling of overeating. You recognize anxiety and stress for what they are instead of trying to mask them with food."

Findings published in 8/05 issue of Alternative Therapies in Helath and Medicine