NET NEWS
Following are articles and news briefs found
on the Internet. The date at the left indicates when the information was added to
this page, the most recent addition placed at the top.
07/13/00 - Yoga can help slow artherosclerosis . . .in patients with severe coronary artery disease.
Dr. S. C. Manchanda and
his team from the All India Institute of Medical Sciences and the Adhyatma Sadhna Kendra
in Delhi, studied 42 men with proven coronary artery disease. For one year, the men
undertook the conventional regimen of controlling risk factors and modifying their diet,
either with or without the addition of regular yoga sessions. The yoga was for 90
minutes daily. Exercises included health rejuvenating exercises, breathing
exercises, meditation, relaxation exercises . . . The medications for heart disease were
continued in both the groups. Before the treatment began, angiography . . . was
performed on all the patients. Writing in the July issue of the Journal of the
Association of Physicians of India, the researchers observed that after one year, the yoga
group showed a significant increase in exercise capacity, reduction in episodes of chest
pain, less need to have their arteries unblocked, decreased weight, and lower cholesterol
levels.
The investigators conclude that a yoga program is feasible as a way to treat
advanced coronary artery disease.
Source: DELHI (Reuters Health)
03/20/00 - Yoga exercises helped asthma symptoms in a small group of patients exposed to toxic gas in the 1984 Union Carbide disaster in Bhopal, India, a group of Indian doctors reported . . . at the World Congress of Asthma.
Dr. Ingrid Eckerman,
from Nacka Hospital in Sweden, and doctors from Bhopal reported that the Sambhavna Trust,
which was set up to treat victims, developed an individualized yoga program for 26 people
who had been exposed to toxic gases. "The postures and the breathing in this
yoga are really something like what we call physical therapy," Eckerman told Reuters
Health. The exposed people were trained for 15 days and followed-up for 6 months
after training. The researchers took their pulse, measured their breath rate before
and after standard exercise, and used peak flow meters and other measurements to assess
lung functions. "The results show highly significant reduction of pulse and
(breath) rate differences before and after exercise," Eckerman's group said.
Improvements in lung function, and reduced use of Western and traditional medicines was
also seen in trained patients, they said. "Yoga seems to be an effective means
to provide sustained relief to persons suffering from chronic breathlessness as a
consequence of toxic gas exposure," the researchers conclude. Eckerman said she
thought the program "taught the people to look at their body in a different way.
These people . . . were supposed to do exercise at home, which some did and some
did not, but everyone had better lung function, including those who did not continue to
exercise at home."
Source: The New England Journal of Medicine 1999;341:1256-1263.
02/19/00 - Regular yoga classes may help relieve the symptoms of carpal tunnel syndrome, researchers conclude.
Simple yoga exercises, conducted twice a
week, "reduced pain and improved (hand) grip strength for patients with carpal tunnel
syndrome," say investigators led by Dr. Marian Garfinkel of the University of
Pennsylvania in Phildadelphia. . . The investigators followed the outcomes of 41 patients
with carpal tunnel syndrome. Half of the group took part in 1-hour yoga sessions
twice a week for 8 weeks, while the other half received no therapy outside of a wrist
splint. The yoga group engaged in the Iyengar version of hatha yoga, which the
authors say "emphasizes proper structural alignment of the body." By the
end of the program, "patient in the yoga-treated group had statistically significant
improvements for grip strength and pain reduction," according to the
researchers. No such improvement was noted among the group who did not attend yoga
classes. Garfinkel's team believes that larger, long-term studies are needed to
determine if yoga has a more lasting impact on carpal tunnel symptoms. However, they
point out that "many subjects in the yoga group reported that they maintained
improvement in their carpal tunnel syndrome symptoms 4 weeks after conclusion of the
program." Garfinkel and her colleagues speculate, therefore, that yoga therapy
"may be helpful not only to treat (carpal tunnel) symptoms, but also to prevent
recurrences or the onset of symptoms."
Source: The Journal of the American Medical Association 1998; 280:1601-1603.