I’ve just looked at a
paper in the Oxford Journal of Rheumatology. H. Cramer and Colleagues of the
Dept. of Internal and Integrative Medicine in Essen, Germany, reviewed studies
on yoga for rheumatic diseases; see link below.
They
concluded: “Based on the results
of this review, only weak recommendations can be made for the ancillary use of
yoga in the management of FM syndrome, OA and RA at this point.”
In their results they talked about two studies on fibromyalgia: “In two
RCTs on FM syndrome, there was very low evidence for effects on pain and low
evidence for effects on disability.” This complies with the findings leading to
the German guidelines. Nevertheless the guidelines recommend the use of Yoga, Tai-Chi or Qi-Gong. Even with low effect size these meditative
relaxing and movement techniques can be of use in multimodal therapy settings.
Link:
http://rheumatology.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/2013/08/09/rheumatology.ket264.short?rss=1
03.02.2014:
There's a recent study of
J.K. Kiecolt–Glaser and colleagues: "Yoga’s impact on inflammation, mood,
and fatigue in breast cancer survivors: a randomized controlled trial". Results:
"At 3 months post-treatment, fatigue was lower in the yoga group (P =
.002), vitality was higher (P = .01), and IL-6 (P = .027), TNF-α (P = .027),
and IL-1β (P = .037) were lower for yoga participants compared with the control
group." Conclusion: "Chronic inflammation may fuel declines in
physical function leading to frailty and disability. If yoga dampens or limits
both fatigue and inflammation, then regular practice could have substantial
health benefits."
I hope that we'll see more studies like this one to get more confidence in advocationg yoga as a part of therapy in different rheumatic and non-rheumatic conditions.
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