Getting Your Yoga and Heart Health On

Research shows that yoga has a host of cardiovascular benefits.

By Jill Hoffman

Posted on: October 30, 2009

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Om. This chant heralding the start of many a yoga class may also be welcoming an era of better cardiovascular health, as studies reveal the positive benefits of the ancient Indian practice on practitioners.

Research shows that yoga and its series of "asanas" or poses can lower weight, blood pressure, blood glucose levels and cholesterol-conditions ripe for chronic diseases such as heart disease, stroke and diabetes, which JAMA says are leading causes of death in the U.S.

It may be no surprise, then, that the Eastern spiritual practice is drawing more than the traditional faithful. One look around the yoga studios sprouting up reveals people of all backgrounds, genders and levels of health, stretching out on their mats, doing "ujaye" breathing and hoping for something to help them live healthier lives.

This is good news to Kyeongra Yang, PhD, MPH, RN, assistant professor, Community Health Nursing Department of Health and Community Systems School of Nursing, University of Pittsburgh. Dr. Yang wrote an Oct. 27, 2007 literature review of several studies showing yoga's health benefits for lowering weight, blood pressure and glucose levels and cholesterol in the Evidence-based Complementary and Alternative Medicine (eCAM) journal, an international, peer-reviewed journal encouraging rigorous research in the world of complementary and alternative medicine.

"These are common risk factors so if we have good control of this area, we might be able to prevent or delay the onset of the chronic disease, such as heart disease, stroke and diabetes," Dr. Yang says.

Not only does yoga improve many physical conditions, but Dr. Yang believes it may benefit mental and emotional well-being as well. The April 2009 issue of the Harvard Mental Health Letter reported that more rigorous research suggests yoga may improve anxiety and depression by blunting the effects of stress through slower heart/breathing rates, lower blood pressure and greater heart rate variability-an indicator of the body's flexibility in responding to stress.

Most of the studies in Dr. Yang's review utilized versions of "hot yoga" styles in which the room is heated to a certain degree to increase sweating and release of toxins. She says 30- to 60-minute sessions lasting eight to 12 or four to10 weeks are most beneficial to see results. Nearly all of the studies in the review were conducted outside of the U.S., but more U.S. researchers are engaging in these studies.

Dr. Yang launched her own pilot study in the summer of 2006 to examine yoga's effects on adults at high risk for Type 2 diabetes. She is using a two-week, fitness-based yoga program with a group of 25 mainly female participants who are 45 to 65 years of age. (She is proposing a larger study to get more statistically significant results.) Already, the findings reveal blood pressure level reductions and possible glucose and triglyceride level drops.

John A. Sutherland, MD, a cardiologist at the Arizona Heart Institute in Phoenix, says the studies are encouraging: "Prevention is always better than cure. Very simple."

But he says cardiology has become such an evidence-based specialty that physicians will be looking for large trials to demonstrate positive responses in large numbers of people and to answer questions such as: "Is it good for preventing your first heart attack? Is it beneficial to you if you have already had coronary disease and [in] preventing further progression of the disease?"

Dr. Sutherland already prescribes exercise for many of his patients. "We put them on medication to try to control the blood pressure while they're waiting, telling them that if the weight comes down and they get physically active, they may not need the pills. One tries anything else that you can coax people to try. We had a yoga program here at the Institute as part of conditioning, at one point. It wasn't anything as formal as what [Dr. Yang] is doing. It was more like, 'Here's another form of exercise if you prefer this.'" He says physicians "try everything" to get patients to lose weight. If yoga helps them do that, he would happily promote a yoga program. "It's not that people don't know how to exercise, it's [that] most people find exercise boring," Dr. Sutherland says.

Dr. Yang, aside from being a health care researcher concerned about chronic disease, has personal reasons for looking at yoga.

"I'm not really good at physical activity," she says. "The one time I had a chance to learn yoga, I loved it. This is something I really believe sedentary-lifestyle people can embark on easily because there is no pressure." Yoga emphasizes an attitude of non-competition and turning within through concentration on the breath. She adds, "Sometimes when you go to the gym, you see a lot of people, they are lean and they are so physically fit, and maybe it is too much vigorous exercise for certain people. But [with] yoga, there is no pressure from other people."

That is one more reason why individuals who have struggled with conditions leading to chronic diseases may want to welcome their first sun salutations and lean into the benefits of "downward dog."

Jill Hoffman is associate editor at ADVANCE.

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