0:00

Let's say you're trying to

0:02

find some solid information about

0:04

a serious health problem that

0:06

concerns you: high blood pressure,

0:08

diabetes. Yet everywhere you look

0:10

someone's trying to sell you

0:12

something like vitamin, Yoga mat,

0:14

Blunders Drugs. Welp. breathe a

0:16

sigh of relief because all

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we bring you all the

0:20

facts. Welcome to the nutrition

0:22

facts. Fired! Guess I'm your

0:24

host doctor Michael Gregor. Today

0:26

we look at the effect

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Yoga may or may. Not have

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on a wide variety of conditions.

0:32

and yes I do. A little

0:34

myth busting him both direction. The

0:37

practice of Yoga for Health has

0:39

become popular in the United States

0:41

and worldwide. A Twenty sixteen survey

0:43

estimates that thirty six million Americans

0:45

may be involved in yoga to

0:47

varying degrees. Though the origins of

0:49

yoga go back thousands of years,

0:51

it was only introduced in the

0:53

United States about a century ago,

0:56

What? Are the risks

0:58

and benefits. Yoga. Users

1:00

tend to report having a better

1:02

health status, but that doesn't necessarily

1:04

mean yoga was the cause. For

1:06

example, yoga practitioners were more likely

1:08

to be normal weight rather than

1:10

obese, and that alone could give you

1:13

better health. Of course, if the

1:15

yoga worse responsible for the weight

1:17

loss, the now would certainly be to

1:19

yoga as credit, But yoga users

1:21

are also more likely to be

1:23

white, female, young, and college educated, all

1:25

of which are independently associate with

1:27

better health status. The same thing

1:29

with. Higher socioeconomic status yoga practitioners

1:31

also tend to exhibit other positive

1:34

health behaviors, specifically more regular physical

1:36

activity in general and a vegetarian

1:38

diet. And the more yoga people

1:40

practice, the more likely they work,

1:42

cut out meat, and eat more

1:44

and more fruits and vegetables for

1:46

every dish all day per week

1:48

of yoga practice, the odds of

1:51

being vegetarian increased twenty percent about

1:53

one in three yoga teachers surveyed

1:55

in the Uk follower plant based

1:57

diet much higher than the general

1:59

population. So. When you

2:01

doing a song like comparing the cardiovascular

2:03

health of yoga practitioners to runners too

2:06

sedentary individuals, you can see how difficult

2:08

it would be that tease out the

2:10

effects of yoga when significantly more yogesh

2:12

reported refraining from eating meat compared to

2:14

the other two groups is like when

2:17

I was reading about the role of

2:19

yoga and the prevention and management of

2:21

various cardiovascular diseases, I was so sad

2:23

to read a yoga could significantly reduce

2:25

cholesterol levels. after all, heart disease that

2:28

number one killer of men and women

2:30

am I looked. At those studies,

2:32

I got really excited for a

2:34

virtual of coronary atherosclerosis with yoga

2:36

or that the only lifestyle intervention

2:38

that can reliably do that was

2:40

a Whole Foods plant based diet.

2:42

Well, Why? Do you

2:45

think the yoga Lifestyle intervention was

2:47

a diet back? So full of

2:49

whole bland food fruits, vegetables, whole

2:51

grains, beans and not? They were

2:53

getting more. fifty grams of fiber

2:55

a day. No wonder they got

2:57

heart disease reversal. But what role

2:59

if any, did the yoga itself

3:01

actually play. Now. If

3:03

yoga, get sued to adopt a

3:06

better lifestyle, A Stop smoking? Eat

3:08

healthier, Great. Whatever gets people to

3:10

take better care of themselves, right?

3:12

If your tinfoil hat tells you

3:14

martians want you to skip the

3:16

doughnuts, I'm all in favor. Whatever

3:18

it takes. But of

3:21

we are to tease out whether

3:23

practicing yoga has any special benefits

3:25

in of itself we really need

3:27

to look at interventional stays randomized

3:29

controlled trials that go beyond just

3:31

associations and correlations and can instead

3:33

prove. Cause. And effect. for

3:36

example when we find yoga users have

3:38

better health status or less likely to

3:40

be obese that could be reverse causation

3:43

meaning instead of yoga leading to better

3:45

health and a normal weight maybe being

3:47

in better health not being obese is

3:50

leading to more yoga same with the

3:52

flipside when you read that yoga practitioners

3:54

are more likely to have mental health

3:56

conditions depression anxiety must be low skills

3:59

or kinda like arthritis, gout,

4:01

lupus, fibromyalgia, joint pain, sprains,

4:04

and asthma. Yeah, maybe yoga

4:06

could be contributing to some of

4:09

those conditions, like muscle sprains, but

4:11

for most of these, it's probably

4:13

reverse causation. People with diseases seeking

4:15

help. Are they getting

4:17

it? The only way to know

4:19

for sure is to put it to

4:21

the test, which we'll explore next. Yoga

4:26

is practiced by millions of Americans.

4:28

This is often recommended as therapy

4:30

for a variety of medical conditions,

4:33

but does it work? And

4:35

for what? In my last

4:37

video, I talked about how yoga practitioners

4:40

tend to report better health status, but

4:42

they also tend to be wealthier, and

4:44

confounding factors like that make it hard

4:46

to draw claims about yoga efficacy. For

4:49

example, when population studies have taken

4:51

factors like education or income into

4:54

account, the yoga effects often evaporate.

4:56

You can't really tell if something is good

4:59

or bad until you put it to the

5:01

test. Unfortunately, only about a

5:03

quarter of the published studies examining the

5:05

effects of yoga on health or well-being

5:07

outcomes were randomized controlled trials, and

5:09

of those, half compared yoga to

5:11

basically just doing nothing. In that

5:13

case, if you find benefit, you

5:15

don't know if it's the yoga

5:17

itself or whether any kind of

5:19

exercise would have achieved the same

5:21

or even better effect. Now

5:24

look, any kind of physical activity is

5:26

good, but is there more

5:28

to yoga than exercise? For example, any

5:30

kind of exercise, whether low intensity such

5:33

as yoga or high intensity such as

5:35

aerobics, may help with menstrual pain compared

5:37

to not doing anything. In

5:40

studies on alcoholics, aerobic

5:42

exercise alleviated depression and anxiety

5:44

symptoms more than yoga, presumably

5:46

just because of the greater

5:49

exercise intensity. Typical

5:51

yoga is probably best described

5:53

as a light intensity physical activity.

5:55

For example, here's the metabolic

5:57

equivalents of some typical yoga. The

6:01

average may be two or three. Compare

6:04

that to walking at a typical speed, which

6:06

is about three. So in

6:08

general, walking burns about as many calories

6:10

as yoga, and brisk walking would burn

6:12

even more. There's all

6:15

sorts of crazy claims about how so-called

6:17

hot yoga expends up to like a

6:19

thousand calories, but no, you burn about

6:21

the same calories at room temperature, so

6:24

90 minutes would just be more like 300

6:26

calories. But isn't

6:28

yoga so much more than just a workout?

6:31

Let's see how the data pans out.

6:35

Multiple sclerosis, for example. We know

6:37

that exercise can be beneficial in

6:39

many health conditions, including neurological disorders.

6:41

And it may not be surprising

6:44

that yoga, which involves a series

6:46

of poses, postures, movements, and breathing

6:48

patterns that could improve balance, muscle

6:50

strength, and flexibility, should be found

6:52

beneficial to patients with, say, multiple

6:54

sclerosis. Let's see if that's actually

6:56

true. No benefit

6:58

for overall quality of life or

7:00

physical quality of life or psychological

7:02

quality of life. Also,

7:04

no benefit for sexual function or

7:06

cognitive function. And this was all

7:08

comparing yoga to doing nothing. A

7:10

similar failure to find much improvement in

7:13

quality of life for people living with

7:15

chronic disease in general was noted with

7:17

only one in seven trials finding a

7:19

clinically significant benefit. Researchers

7:21

did find yoga helped fatigue in

7:23

patients with MS, but not any

7:26

better than regular exercise. Same

7:28

with chronic low back pain. Yoga might decrease

7:30

pain and improve function compared to not really

7:32

doing anything, but have the same effect on

7:35

pain and disability as any other exercise or

7:37

physical therapy. So if you like

7:39

yoga and want to make that your exercise of

7:41

choice, great. But

7:43

it doesn't appear to have any unique benefits for

7:45

back pain. Same with insomnia.

7:47

Yoga works compared to nothing, but

7:50

not to physically active controls. And

7:52

for cancer patients, mostly breast cancer

7:54

patients, walking was found to be

7:57

more effective than yoga and improving sleep.

8:00

For markers of systemic inflammation in breast

8:02

cancer survivors, six months of yoga had

8:04

a similar effect as six months of

8:07

non-yoga exercise. Same with cancer-related

8:09

fatigue and quality of life for women

8:11

with breast cancer, better than nothing, but

8:13

no better than other types of physical

8:15

activity. Finally, for breast

8:17

cancer survivors, the effectiveness of

8:19

yoga interventions in breast cancer-related

8:21

lymphedema, an abnormal accumulation of

8:24

fluid for which there's no

8:26

effective treatment, and

8:28

adding yoga does not seem to help. There

8:31

are some conditions for which yoga

8:33

really does appear to pull ahead

8:35

of the pack, though. For example,

8:37

chronic, nonspecific neck pain. Based

8:40

on 10 randomized control trials, not only

8:42

was yoga better for neck pain than

8:44

control groups in general, which included doing

8:46

nothing, yoga also seemed to

8:48

beat out active controls, other types of

8:50

exercises. The authors

8:52

tentatively conclude that yoga can

8:55

relieve neck pain intensity, improve

8:57

pain-related disability, increase range of

8:59

motion, improve quality of life,

9:01

and boost mood among neck pain sufferers.

9:05

Finally today, what happens when

9:07

real yoga is compared to

9:09

sham yoga? Yoga

9:11

is an ancient mind-body discipline which

9:13

originated in India thousands

9:16

of years ago, and that's where most

9:18

yoga studies are done to this day.

9:21

This has raised concerns that national

9:23

pride might incline Indian researchers to

9:26

quietly shelve any negative results and

9:28

just publish studies showing yoga works.

9:31

This fear is not without precedent.

9:34

For example, research conducted in China,

9:36

Japan, Hong Kong, and Taiwan was

9:38

found to be uniformly favorable to

9:41

acupuncture. All trials,

9:44

without exception, were positive. Now,

9:47

one possible explanation for this finding is

9:49

that acupuncture is just more effective in

9:51

countries where it's traditionally practiced, but

9:53

it is a little suspicious. So

9:56

Are Indian yoga trials more likely to

9:58

be positive than those? From other

10:00

countries, they looked at hundreds or

10:03

randomized controlled trials of yoga both

10:05

done in India and done in

10:07

other countries. And trials on yoga

10:09

conduct in India had about twenty

10:11

five times the odds of reaching

10:13

positive conclusions as those conducted elsewhere.

10:16

Again, guess yoga my be more

10:18

effective in India than elsewhere, but

10:20

it is a little suspicious. So

10:23

for example of you're interested in whether yoga

10:25

is helpful for treating headaches and you read

10:27

that yoga appears to be helpful for those

10:29

suffering from tension type headaches. But then you

10:31

find out nearly. Also, studies were conducted in

10:34

India. what do you do with that information?

10:36

Also, notably, none of the control

10:39

groups any sort of exercise component,

10:41

though this may be less critical

10:43

for tension headaches since neither aerobics,

10:46

exercise training, Nor. Strength

10:48

Training. Appears to

10:50

help them so affordably. The Indian

10:52

study conclusions yoga may indeed help

10:55

attention headaches, but even they found

10:57

no effect for migraines what may

11:00

have migraines though his other types

11:02

of exercise specifically aerobic exercise, decreasing

11:04

migraine pain, intensity, frequency and duration

11:07

at least in the short term.

11:10

What about the benefits of yoga practice

11:12

covered of physical exercise in the management

11:14

of type two diabetes. A significant reduction

11:16

above short term and long term blood

11:19

sugar control was noted in the yoga

11:21

groups compared to other exercise control groups.

11:24

However, the findings many to be

11:26

interpreted with caution. Sincerely, half of

11:28

the studies didn't define and it's

11:30

here to a well planned exercise

11:32

regimen in the control group. Furthermore,

11:34

an exercise intervention comparable in intensity

11:36

to yoga was followed only and

11:38

three other the Gate studies included.

11:41

And for what it's worth, the

11:43

majority the study suggests they were

11:45

from India. When yoga

11:47

was carefully compared to sham

11:49

yoga which consists of of

11:51

for charity sizes, dandy exercises

11:53

and slow walking to match

11:55

the yoga session, the relative

11:57

yoga benefits evaporated. boasts job.

12:00

N Sham yoga have identical sex

12:02

some blood sugar status. Hence further,

12:04

well controlled randomized trials are required

12:07

prior to drawing conclusions about the

12:09

benefits of yoga in comparison to

12:12

physical exercise in patience with diabetes.

12:15

Similar tentative conclusions were reached for

12:17

Yoga for Osteoarthritis. Put all the

12:19

stays together and yoga me Auntie

12:21

be affective for improving pain, function

12:23

and stiffness and individuals with osteoarthritis

12:25

of the needs compared not only

12:27

to doing nothing but compared to

12:29

other kinds of exercise. They had

12:31

some issues with the quality of

12:33

some of the studies and so

12:35

only a week. Recommendations for the

12:37

use of yoga for Osteoarthritis But

12:39

hey, if you like yoga or

12:41

if Yoga Zooming can exercise you

12:43

to do then probably. Better than

12:46

nothing. Finally, in this

12:48

video let's look at the effects

12:50

of yoga compared to active and

12:52

inactive controls. meaning like compared to

12:54

other It says regiments are just

12:56

like doing nothing on physical function

12:59

and health related quality of life

13:01

and adults aged sixty and older

13:03

tibet doing nothing. They found clear

13:05

evidence a yoga improve physical function,

13:07

psychological well being and older adult

13:09

some Devlin better than nothing. What

13:12

about bird? Other exercises yoga pulled

13:14

ahead for lower limbs strength and

13:16

lower body. Flexibility of but

13:18

for improving balance, mobility, and

13:20

walking speed. Yoga appeared comparable.

13:23

Psychologically. Yoga appear

13:25

to be doubt other exercise for

13:27

leaving depression in older adults but

13:30

not anxiety or perceived mental health

13:32

insurance. We

13:34

will love it if you could

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studies mentioned here polluters and France

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podcast landing based are you find

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all the detailed information need links

13:57

to other sources we site for

13:59

each time. My

14:01

last two books were How To Survive

14:03

A Pandemic an My How Nothing Diet

14:05

cookbook Get Ready this year for the

14:07

launch of How Not It Age and

14:09

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who's own life was saved with

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