A new study shows that regular yoga practice can reduce multiple compounds in the blood and lower levels of inflammatory responses caused by normal aging and stress.
A study published in Psychosomatic Medicine and conducted by The Ohio State University showed that women who exercised yoga regularly had lower levels of the cytokine interleukin-6 (IL-6) in their blood.
IL-6 is an important component of the body’s inflammatory response and has been linked to heart disease, stroke, type II diabetes, arthritis, and many age-related debilitating diseases. The researchers suggest that reducing inflammation can be very beneficial, both in terms of short-term and long-term health effects.
Janice Kiecolt-Glaser, professor of psychiatry and psychology and first author, explained, “In addition to having lower levels of inflammation prior to stress, we also observed that skilled yoga exercisers had lower levels of inflammatory responses when subjected to stress.” “The implication: by practicing yoga or practicing other stress-reducing modalities, people can expect to learn to cope comfortably with stressful events in their daily lives.”
The researchers recruited 50 women, with an average age of 41 years. They were then divided into two groups. One group was the “rookies,” whose members had either attended a yoga class or had studied six to 12 sessions of yoga at home on video; the other group was the “prawns,” whose members had a history of practicing yoga twice a week for at least two years, or at least twice a week in the last year. The other group was the “prawns,” whose members had a history of practicing yoga twice a week for at least two years or at least in the last year. Each woman in the study was required to attend yoga classes at the University’s Clinical Research Center three times every two weeks. At the beginning of each session, participants were asked to fill out a questionnaire and complete several psychometric tests to measure their state of mind and anxiety levels. Participants then completed several tasks designed to increase their stress levels, including dipping their feet in cold water for one minute, followed by a series of increasingly difficult math problems that participants were asked to solve without a pen and paper. After receiving these “stressful stimuli,” participants either attended a yoga class, walked slowly on a treadmill at 0.5 miles per hour (a pace designed to contrast the metabolic demands of a yoga class), or watched a banal and tedious video recording as a control condition. At the end of the study, once the blood samples were analyzed, the researchers saw that the women in the “rookie” group had 41% higher levels of the inflammation-promoting cytokine IL-6 than the corresponding levels in the women in the “prawn” group.
Co-author Ron Glaser, professor of molecular virology, immunology and medical genetics, says the study has some very clear implications for health.
“We know that inflammation plays an important role in many conditions. Yoga intervenes as a simple, enjoyable way to potentially help reduce the risk of heart disease, diabetes or other age-related conditions.” He said. “It’s a simple and easy way that people can physically reduce their risk of disease.”
Bill Malarkey, professor of internal medicine and one of the co-authors, noted that the body’s flexibility typically diminishes as we age. “As we age, the muscles get shorter and stiffer, mainly because of lack of activity.” He says, “Yoga’s stretching exercises actually improve the body’s flexibility, while rotational relaxation reduces the stress state.”
Malarkey believes that people practicing yoga or engaging in other regular exercise is one of the proven ways to address the current human health crisis. “People should be educated on this point. They should take responsibility for their own health and lifestyle. Practicing yoga and similar exercises can change health.”
As a clinician, he says, “I spend a lot of time just trying to get people to slow down.”