"Yoga" an effective lifestyle therapy to manage High Blood Pressure

"Yoga" is an effective lifestyle therapy to manage High Blood Pressure, according to a meta-analysis.

Yoga can be a promising antihypertensive lifestyle therapy that produces the greatest benefits to High BP patients when breathing techniques and meditation are included, revealed a recently published study in the Mayo Clinic Proceedings.

The benefits of yoga for flexibility is well known to us, but yoga is equally effective in reducing high blood pressure (BP). High BP can lead to heart attacks, strokes, and other unhealthy cardiovascular events. It has bee known for quite a long time that regular exercise and healthy eating habits help reduce blood pressure.

The present study was conducted by YinWuMA and colleagues to investigate the efficacy of yoga as antihypertensive lifestyle therapy and to identify moderators that account for variability in the blood pressure (BP) response to yoga.

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The study revealed that, when yoga was practised 3 sessions per week among samples with hypertension, yoga interventions that included breathing techniques and meditation/mental relaxation elicited BP reductions of 11/6 mm Hg compared with those that did not.

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The authors systematically searched 6 electronic databases from inception through June 4, 2018, for articles published in English language journals on trials of yoga interventions that involved adult participants, reported preintervention and postintervention BP, and had a nonexercise/nondiet control group. Their search yielded 49 qualifying controlled trials. The risk of bias and methodological study quality was evaluated. meta-regression analysis was performed followed by random-effects assumptions. The authors then generated additive models that represented the largest possible clinically relevant BP reductions.

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On average, the trial included 3517 participants who were middle-aged, overweight adults with high BP ( systolic BP, 129.3±13.3 mm Hg; diastolic BP, 80.7±8.4 mm Hg), Yoga was practised 3-4 sessions per week for around 25-50 minutes per session for around 1-2 weeks. On average, yoga elicited moderate reductions in systolic BP and diastolic BP as compared to controls. Controlling for publication bias and methodological study quality, when yoga was practised 3 sessions per week among samples with hypertension, yoga interventions that included breathing techniques and meditation/mental relaxation elicited BP reductions of 11/6 mm Hg compared with those that did not (ie, 6/3 mm Hg).

The results of the study indicated that yoga antihypertensive lifestyle therapy has great potential in managing BP in adults.

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https://doi.org/10.1016/j.mayocp.2018.09.023