The compounds called cytokine interleukin-6 (IL-6) are said to inflict inflammatory response in the body and elevate the risk of heart disease, stroke, type-2 diabetes, arthritis and a host of other age-related diseases.
"We know that inflammation plays a major role in many diseases. Yoga appears to be a simple and enjoyable way to add an intervention that might reduce risks for developing heart disease, diabetes and other age-related diseases.
"This is an easy thing people can do to help reduce their risks of illness," said lead author Janice Kiecolt-Glaser of the Ohio State University.
Study details
Glaser and colleagues focused on 50 women aged 41 to come up with these findings.
For the study, the participants were divided into two groups: novices and experts. Those who had practiced yoga for not more than six to 12 sessions were assigned to the novices group.
And subjects who had practiced yoga twice a week for at least two years and had still been practicing the yogic sessions twice a week for the last year were considered experts.
During the course of the study, all the participants had to undertake psychological tests as well as several tasks, called ‘stressors’, specifically designed to increase their stress levels.
Their blood samples were also tested from time to time. After undergoing through the 'stressors', they had to either take up a yoga session, walk on a treadmill or watch boring videos.
Yoga reduced inflammation
Analysis of the blood samples as well as different activities undertaken by the subjects revealed that novices had higher amounts of cytokine interleukin-6 (IL-6) in their blood compared to women who routinely practiced yoga.
Furthermore, the yoga practitioners showed very small raise in the levels of the inflammatory compounds in blood even after undertaking stressful events. This clearly indicated that yoga helps in easing off body’s inflammatory response.
“In essence, the experts walked into the study with lower levels of inflammation than the novices, and the experts were also better able to limit their stress responses than were the novices,” Kiecolt-Glaser explained.
“Hopefully, this means that people can eventually learn to respond less strongly to stressors in their everyday lives by using yoga and other stress-reducing modalities,” he stated.
Findings of the study suggest that one can reap varied health benefits by regularly practicing yoga few times a week.
The study appears in the Journal Psychosomatic Medicine.
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