Doing yoga may be a good way to protect against heart disease,
particularly if you cannot do more vigorous exercise, research suggests. A
review in the Netherlands of 37 studies involving nearly 3,000 people found
yoga was independently linked to a lowering of heart risk factors such as high blood
pressure and cholesterol. Yoga does not count towards the recommended physical
activity that we should all do each week.
Experts say it may still be beneficial.
Yoga is an ancient form of exercise that focuses on strength,
flexibility and breathing to boost physical and mental wellbeing. There are
lots of different types of yoga - tantric, Hatha and Ashtanga to name a few -
but most are not strenuous enough to count towards the 150 minutes of
moderate-intensity aerobic activity the government says we should get each week
to give our heart and lungs a workout.
Yoga does count as a muscle strengthening exercise - something the same
guidelines say we should do on two or more days a week, every week.
Calming
Prof Myriam Hunink, from Erasmus University Medical Center in
Rotterdam, set out to investigate what effect, if any, yoga might have on heart
health.
Compared with no exercise, yoga had significant benefits - it was
linked to a lower risk of obesity, high blood pressure and raised cholesterol,
the European Journal of Preventive Cardiology reports.
When pitched against other types of exercise, such as brisk walking or
jogging, yoga was no better or worse based on the same measures of heart risk.
Prof Hunink said: "These results indicate that yoga is potentially
very useful and in my view worth pursuing as a risk improvement practice."
It is not clear why yoga might be beneficial, but experts say it could
be down to its calming effect. Stress has been linked to heart disease and high
blood pressure.
Maureen Talbot, senior cardiac nurse at the British Heart Foundation,
said: "The benefits could be due to working the muscles and breathing,
which can bring more oxygen into the body, leading to lower blood pressure.
"A larger study is recommended though to assess the effects of
yoga more fully."
She said the benefits of yoga on emotional health were
well-established.
http://www.bbc.com/news/health-30475999
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