The medicinal powers of yoga

About six years ago, Sharon Gutterman hit a rough patch. Gutterman, then 60, a West Hartford, Conn.-based consultant who teaches wellness workshops for resident physicians, went to the doctor's office to discover that her blood pressure was high. On top of that, she was feeling a lot of anxiety, so her physician wrote her a prescription for an anti-depressant.

But, before getting the prescription filled, Gutterman did some reading and decided she could probably start feeling better not by popping pills, but through practicing yoga.

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Gutterman's experience is becoming increasingly common, experts say, as patients continue to feel dissatisfied with the effectiveness of conventional medicine and look for new ways to take control of their health. In 2004 the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimated that up to 62 per centof U.S. adults had used some form of complimentary and alternative medicine in the previous year, including yoga, most often to treat problems such as back pain, colds, neck problems, joint stiffness and anxiety or depression.

But medical research that's been accumulating over the past 10 to 15 years is showing that yoga can provide health benefits that many people may not realize, positively affecting conditions such as heart disease and the symptoms of menopause.

"As far as preventive medicine, it's as close to one-stop shopping as you can find," says Dr. Timothy McCall, a board-certified specialist in internal medicine and author of Yoga as Medicine: The Yogic Prescription for Health and Healing.

Dedication pays dividends

McCall's own interest in yoga grew slowly. At first he attended classes every other week or so but had trouble finding time to practice yoga at home and didn't see great results. It wasn't until he resolved to get up every morning for one year to do it that he began seeing changes. In a few months, his slouching posture was improving, knots in his upper back were disappearing and he wasn't getting injured as often as he used to when playing tennis and basketball.

He also wasn't worrying as much. McCall, who now does yoga poses, breathing exercises, meditation and other practices just about every day, eventually left his medical practice and began investigating yoga's therapeutic potential.

One of the more surprising things McCall has found is that yoga can improve levels of cholesterol and triglycerides. He points to a controlled trial conducted at the Yoga Institute of Santacruz, India, near Mumbai that examined the effects of yoga on 113 patients with coronary artery disease who were taking prescribed medication.

The study showed that those who received instruction on yoga techniques, lifestyle recommendations and a healthy diet had a 23 per centdrop in cholesterol from 247 to 185 compared with 4 per centamong those who did not. The yoga-practicing group also had a 26 per centdrop in low-density lipoprotein, known as bad cholesterol, compared with 3 per centin the control group.

The mechanism, McCall says, may be connected to yoga's effect on stress, which can boost cholesterol levels and worsen the ratio of total to high-density lipoprotein, or good cholesterol. The weight loss and conditioning that come with regular yoga practice also tend to lower triglyceride levels and boost HDL, high levels of which protect against heart attacks.

Comfort for cancer sufferers

Yoga is also getting more attention nowadays for its ability to improve the quality of life of women being treated for breast cancer.

A small study at the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in 2006 showed that women with breast cancer who participated in yoga classes twice a week at or around the time of their radiation appointments reported better general health after just one week, including a slight improvement in their ability to function socially and less overall fatigue.

Researchers are currently looking at how yoga might affect levels of the stress hormone cortisol, as well as the immune system of cancer patients, says Lorenzo Cohen, director of the Integrative Medicine Program and professor in the department of behavioral science at the Anderson Cancer Center.

Anew, small study out of Temple University earlier this year also demonstrates the role yoga can play in keeping people on their feet as they age. Researchers found that women enrolled for nine weeks in an Iyengar yoga program designed for people over 65 had faster strides, increased flexibility in their lower extremities and more confidence in their balance and ability to walk. The results are important because falls are the leading cause of nonfatal injuries and hospital admissions for trauma among those 65 years and older, according to the CDC.

"If an individual has a fear of falling they may tend not to move as much," says Roberta Newton, professor in physical therapy at Temple University. "Unfortunately, by not moving, they really increase their chance of falling. Yoga makes individuals feel more comfortable, more confident."

Getting started

If you're thinking of starting a yoga program for its medicinal purposes, experts recommend doing some research and, before signing up, talking to an instructor about what his or her class entails and what you hope to get out of it. It's also worth it to check in with your general practitioner. McCall suggests that on your visit you bring along a book illustrating the poses you'll be doing, just in case your doctor isn't a yogi.

Yoga, of course, can't do everything. For instance, while Gutterman improved her outlook, lost weight and never ended up taking antidepressants, she still had to go on medication to control her blood pressure.

McCall says he gets particularly annoyed when some teachers overstate the practice's benefits, since it turns off skeptics and promotes disbelief of the proven effects, which are impressive on their own.

"The line I like to use is that by itself yoga isn't a cure for many things," says McCall. "But there's almost nothing it can't help."