Yoga Medical News Daily

Yoga for muscle strength and bone health in postmenopausal women

It has been shown in numerous research studies that exercise prevents rapid bone loss, increases muscle strength, mobility and flexibility in postmenopausal women. This study evaluated "the effect of yoga exercises in postmenopausal osteoporotic women on balance and life quality and to compare the results with a classic osteoporosis exercise program." 

"Twenty-six postmenopausal osteoporotic women over 55 years of age were included in the study. A neuromuscular test battery and the QUALEFFO as a life quality index were used for the assessment of balance and life quality, respectively. . . .  The results showed that yoga education has a positive effect on pain, physical functions, social functions . . .  In conclusion, yoga appears to be an alternative physical activity for the rehabilitation of osteoporotic subjects."  Abstract: PubMed PMID: 20332729. "Yoga might be an alternative training for the quality of life and balance in postmenopausal osteoporosis," by Tüzün S, Aktas I, Akarirmak U, Sipahi S, Tüzün F., European Journal of Physical and Rehabilitation Medicine [2010 Mar;46(1):69-72]

Yoga for quality of life and balance in postmenopausal osteoporosis

There are several reasons to practice yoga, if you are postmenopausal and have osteopenia or osteoporosis: yoga has been shown to maintain and even build bone mineral density. 

In addition, as researchers from Istanbul University, Turkey, point out in this study, yoga also offers "a positive effect on balance, posture, flexibility, and life quality resulting from its effects on balance, stretching, relaxation and strengthening."

The aim of their study was "to evaluate the effect of yoga exercises in postmenopausal osteoporotic women on balance and life quality and to compare the results with a classic osteoporosis exercise program."  Twenty-six postmenopausal osteoporotic women over 55 years of age were studied with results showing the positive effects of yoga on balance, pain, and general health. Abstact: PubMed. Article by Tüzün S, Aktas I, Akarirmak U, Sipahi S, Tüzün F, European Journal of Physical and Rehabilitation Medicine [2010 Feb 18 - Epub ahead of print]

Recent yoga books addressing specific health conditions

Current medical research articles detail the health benefits of yoga practice for a variety of health issues. These include pain relief, improved flexibility, bone health, and/or support for an overall better quality lifestyle. Here is a small selection of books, many very well illustrated, that focus on the use of yoga for a specific condition. With the exception of The Yoga for Osteoporosis by Dr. Loren Fishman and Ellen Saltonstall which will be published in March 2010, all of the titles are currently in print.

Yoga as Medicine: The Yogic Prescription for Health and Healing, by the Yoga Journal and Timothy McCall. Bantam;  2007. Included are twenty chapters featuring noted yoga instructors describing their approaches to specific conditions—panic attacks, carpal tunnel syndrome, depression, infertility, cancer, etc. They offer advice, rather than fixed protocols.      

Yoga for Arthritis: The Complete Guide, by Loren Fishman MD and Ellen Saltonstall. W. W. Norton & Company, 2008. This heavily illustrated guide helps readers understand arthritis and gives a spectrum of exercises for beginners and experts. Broken down into chapters focusing on each major joint, there are 100 classical yoga poses and numerous imaginative and physiologically sound adapted poses, all with step-by-step instructions and photo demonstrations.

Yoga for Osteoporosis: The Complete Guide, by Loren Fishman MD  and Ellen Saltonstall. W. W. Norton & Company — forthcoming publication date: March 29, 2010. Offers a medical yoga program designed for the management and prevention of osteoporosis, with hundreds of illustrations. Classical yoga poses, as well as physiologically sound adapted poses, are presented with detailed instructions and photographs. 

Yoga for Anxiety: Meditations and Practices for Calming the Body and Mind, by Mary Nurriestearns and Rick Nurriestearns, New Harbinger Publications 2010. Mary NurrieStearns, a psychotherapist and yoga teacher, and Rick NurrieStearns, a meditation teacher, present self-healing techniques for generalized anxiety disorder drawn from the yogic tradition.

Yoga for Pain Relief: Simple Practices to Calm Your Mind & Heal Your Chronic Pain, by Kelly McGonical.  New Harbinger Publications, 2009. Stanford psychology instructor and well-known yoga teacher Kelly McGonigal shows readers how yoga and the latest skills drawn from mind-body research can help alleviate chronic pain.

Yoga for Movement Disorders: Rebuilding Strength, Balance and Flexibility for Parkinson's Disease and Dystonia (Spiral-bound), by Renee Le Verrier. Merit Publishing, 2008. Designed for people with dystonia, muscle imbalance, rigidity, and spasms due to such causes as Parkinson's, stroke, and multiple sclerosis. The focus is on rebuilding strength and flexibility as well as physical and emotional balance. The author is a certified yoga instructor and a Parkinson's Disease patient. She specilizes in teaching yoga to movement disordered patients. Foreword by Dr. Lewis Sudarsky, Director of the Movement Disorder Clinic at Brigham & Women's Hospital in Boston; Associate Professor of Neurology at Harvard Medical School.

Yoga and Multiple Sclerosis: A Journey to Health and Healing, by Loren Martin Fishman MD, and Eric Small. Demos Health, 2007. Designed to manage symptoms, raise functional abilities. Co-author Eric Small was diagnosed with MS at the age of 22, and soon after became a serious student of Iyengar yoga, which has helped him greatly with the effects of his illness. He has been teaching yoga since the mid-1960s. 

Healing Addiction with Yoga: A Yoga Program for People in 12-Step Recovery, by Annalisa Cunningham, Findhorn Press, 3rd ed., 2010. The author is a certified yoga teacher and a communications teacher with a background in counseling. The book presents a 21-day yoga regimen using relaxation techniques, nutrition and lifestyle suggestions, aerobic activities, and journal writing, all geared to incorporate the 12-step philosophy into yoga practice. The featured poses are drawn from the popular hatha yoga tradition. Newly updated and revised.

Physical activity in the prevention of osteoporosis – what's needed are high impact exercise programs

This update review article published in Maturitas [2009 May 20;63(1):34-8] points out that in "Europe and North America about 6% of men and 21% of women aged 50-84 years are classified to have osteoporosis. Although it is well accepted that exercise is essential for the management of osteoporosis, the exact role of physical activity in the primary and secondary prevention of osteoporotic fractures is still controversial. . . . Two prospective cohort studies indicate the clinical relevance of this association by showing an inverse relationship between physical activity and the risk of hip fracture. There is convincing evidence that physical activity effectively slows bone loss in postmenopausal women in a dose-dependent manner. Exercise programs may increase bone mineral density. CONCLUSION: In order to maximize the goals of public health most effective, individually adapted, intense, high impact exercise programs are needed. However, they may be complicated to communicate and adherence on the population level may be hard to achieve. These programs must be weighed against popular and applicable existing programs (e.g. aerobic classes, Tai Chi, and walking) which appear to be easier to adhere to but appear to be less effective in the prevention of osteoporotic fractures in the individual postmenopausal women."  Abstract: PubMed.

Loren Fishman on Yoga's Benefits in Treating Osteoporosis

Loren Fishman's article Pilot Study and New Book Prove Yoga's Benefits in Treating Osteoporosis appeared today in the Huffington Post referencing earlier published results of his pilot study on yoga and osteoporosis (downloadable pdf copy of the article at: http://www.sciatica.org). His and co-author Ellen Saltonstall's forthcoming book Yoga for Osteoporosis will be published in early 2010.

Today's Huffington Post piece succinctly sums up why yoga is good for you and high impact exercise is not:  

"Too much impact exercise and you will help your bones while hurting your joints. Don't exercise and your osteoporosis will advance. It's both ends of the bone against the middle.

While Yoga is no panacea, it does provide weight-bearing exercise with none of the dangers that lead to osteoarthritis. Yoga pits one muscle group against another to generate forces far greater than gravity. Yoga is isometric exercise. It is also weight bearing. Both of these types of activity have been proven to improve bone strength. Unlike most forms of "weight-bearing" activity, Yoga does not damage cartilage or lead to osteoarthritis, another peril of aging."

For additional information see Dr. Fishman's site at: http://www.sciatica.org/. 

Green tea and Tai Chi for bone health

Discussion of the design of a randomized trial. "BACKGROUND: Osteoporosis is a major health problem in postmenopausal women. Evidence suggests the importance of oxidative stress in bone metabolism and bone loss. Tea consumption may be beneficial to osteoporosis due to its antioxidant capability. However, lack of objective data characterizing tea consumption has hindered the precise evaluation of the association between tea ingestion and bone mineral density in previous questionnaire-based epidemiological studies. On the other hand, although published studies suggest that Tai Chi (TC) exercise can benefit bone health and may reduce oxidative stress, all studies were conducted using a relatively healthy older population, instead of a high-risk one such as osteopenic postmenopausal women. Therefore, this study was designed to test an intervention including green tea polyphenol (GTP) and TC exercise for feasibility, and to quantitatively assess their individual and interactive effects on postmenopausal women with osteopenia. . . . DISCUSSION: We present the rationale, design, and methodology of a placebo-controlled randomized trial to investigate a new complementary and alternative medicine strategy featuring a dietary supplement and a mind-body exercise for alleviating bone loss in osteopenic postmenopausal women." Abstract: PubMed. Full-text: BMC Musculoskeletal Disorders (2009 Sept 4;10;110). 

Framed osteoporosis prevention print advertisements

Thesis entitled Setting the Sites High: Measuring Viewer Attention to and Recall of Framed Osteoporosis Prevention Print Advertisements, completed in 2009, by Deborah O'Malley, Queen's University, Kingston, Ontario, Canada. "Building on Message Framing Theory and the Elaboration Likelihood Model (ELM), this study examined how message frame impacts viewer attention to and cognitive processing of osteoporosis prevention print ads. Attention was measured with eye tracking technology, which calculated participants’ number of fixations and dwell time. Cognitive processing was assessed through a textual masked-recall exercise. Sixty women, with a mean age of 21.25+/-2.61 years, viewed the same 36 ads . . . . Findings may help expand theory related to message framing and the ELM, while contributing to advancements in eye tracking literature and health communications practice." Abstract and PDF available for download.

Effects of weight bearing yoga training in the bone resorption markers of postmenopausal women

This study in the Journal of the Medical Association of Thailand, (2009 Sept;92 Suppl5:S102-8) by Phoosuwan M, Kritpet T, and Yuktanandana P. from the School of Sports Science, Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok, Thailand, reports on the results of an investigation involving an experimental group (19 subjects, the mean age 54.320 yrs) attending 12-week weight-bearing yoga training 3 days a week, 50 minutes a day, while the control group lived their normal lives. "After the 12-week training, the mean bone resorption marker (beta-CrossLaps) of the experimental group reduced from 0.464 to 0.339 ng/ml (-26.939%) whereas the control group reduced from 0.389 to 0.386 ng/ml (-0.771%) . . . . The weigh-bearing yoga training had a positive effect on bone by slowing down bone resorption which was a very essential indicator for human health because it reduced the osteoporosis risks in the postmenopausal women. Additionally, yoga training promoted better quality of life." Abstract: PubMed.

Effect of Yoga on Markers of Bone Turnover in Osteopenic Women

This pilot study by Judith Balk, Melissa Gluck, Lisa Bernardo, and Janet Catov, all of the University of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, is described in the International Journal of Yoga Therapy (2009: 19;1: 63-68), "Seven participants completed a 12-week series of one hour per week Yoga classes, in addition to home Yoga practice. We analyzed the correlation between time spent on Yoga and time spent on other weight-bearing exercise and change in bone turnover markers. The amount of Yoga practice was significantly correlated with BAP levels (r = 0.68, p = 0.09). A weaker, non-significant correlation was found between the amount of Yoga practice and uNTX levels (r = -.54, p = .21). Compared to Yoga, other physical activities were less correlated with BAP and uNTX levels. Yoga may have beneficial effects on bone turnover in osteopenic postmenopausal women." Abstract.

Yoga for Osteoporosis: A Pilot

The author Loren M. Fishman, MD describes in this article appearing in Topics in Geriatric Rehabilitation (July/September 2009, vol. 33, issue 3, pp. 244-50) a pilot study involving eighteen patients with osteoporosis or osteopenia, average age 68.  After 10-minute daily yoga over a 2-year period, the yoga practitioners gained 0.76 and 0.94 for spine and hips, respectively on the T-scale. Conclusion: "Yoga appears to be an effective way to build bone mineral density after menopause."