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Effectiveness of Yoga for Patients With Diabetes Mellitus


Affiliations
1 Swami Vivekananda Yoga Anusandhana Samsthana, Vivekananda Road, Kalluballu Post, Anekal Tq, Jigani 560 105, India
2 NIMHANS Integrated Centre for Yoga, Department of Psychiatry, National Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences, Hosur Road, Bengaluru 560 029, India
3 Department of Psychiatric Social Work, National Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences, Hosur Road, Bengaluru 560 029, India
 

Diabetes mellitus is a multifactorial metabolic disorder which requires lifestyle interventions for its management. A number of controlled yoga trials in last few years have observed lifestyle interventions especially yoga to be efficacious in the management of diabetes. The aim of this study is to systematically review the research conducted in the field to understand the effectiveness of yoga on diabetes mellitus. A systematic search was done using search engines such as PubMed, Google Scholar, Cochrane Library, MEDLINE, CAMbase, PsycINFO and IndMED. A total of 212 articles were selected, of which 166 were excluded and 46 controlled trials (CTs) were included in the review. Among the 46 CTs, 31 studies were categorized based on the primary outcome variables, 10 were based on the secondary outcome variables and 5 studies were control studies. Risk of bias assessment was conducted on all the studies. The review demonstrates significant improvement due to yoga practice in the primary outcome measures such as blood glucose levels along with secondary outcome measures such as cardiac autonomic variables, lipid profile, liver enzymes, respiratory variables, quality of life, anxiety and depression. Thus yoga has not only been found to be beneficial for improved glycaemic control, but also for the wide variety of symptoms associated with the diabetes. Despite this evidence, it is worth mentioning that further gold standard randomized controlled trials are warranted with more specific sets of practice, to prescribe yoga especially as an alternative treatment for the management of diabetes.

Keywords

Controlled Trials, Diabetes Mellitus, Primary and Secondary Outcome Variables, Yoga.
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  • Effectiveness of Yoga for Patients With Diabetes Mellitus

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Authors

Nagendra Ramarao Hongasandra
Swami Vivekananda Yoga Anusandhana Samsthana, Vivekananda Road, Kalluballu Post, Anekal Tq, Jigani 560 105, India
Pooja More
NIMHANS Integrated Centre for Yoga, Department of Psychiatry, National Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences, Hosur Road, Bengaluru 560 029, India
Vinod Kumar
NIMHANS Integrated Centre for Yoga, Department of Psychiatry, National Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences, Hosur Road, Bengaluru 560 029, India
Aarti Jagannathan
Department of Psychiatric Social Work, National Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences, Hosur Road, Bengaluru 560 029, India
Nagarathna Raghuram
Swami Vivekananda Yoga Anusandhana Samsthana, Vivekananda Road, Kalluballu Post, Anekal Tq, Jigani 560 105, India

Abstract


Diabetes mellitus is a multifactorial metabolic disorder which requires lifestyle interventions for its management. A number of controlled yoga trials in last few years have observed lifestyle interventions especially yoga to be efficacious in the management of diabetes. The aim of this study is to systematically review the research conducted in the field to understand the effectiveness of yoga on diabetes mellitus. A systematic search was done using search engines such as PubMed, Google Scholar, Cochrane Library, MEDLINE, CAMbase, PsycINFO and IndMED. A total of 212 articles were selected, of which 166 were excluded and 46 controlled trials (CTs) were included in the review. Among the 46 CTs, 31 studies were categorized based on the primary outcome variables, 10 were based on the secondary outcome variables and 5 studies were control studies. Risk of bias assessment was conducted on all the studies. The review demonstrates significant improvement due to yoga practice in the primary outcome measures such as blood glucose levels along with secondary outcome measures such as cardiac autonomic variables, lipid profile, liver enzymes, respiratory variables, quality of life, anxiety and depression. Thus yoga has not only been found to be beneficial for improved glycaemic control, but also for the wide variety of symptoms associated with the diabetes. Despite this evidence, it is worth mentioning that further gold standard randomized controlled trials are warranted with more specific sets of practice, to prescribe yoga especially as an alternative treatment for the management of diabetes.

Keywords


Controlled Trials, Diabetes Mellitus, Primary and Secondary Outcome Variables, Yoga.

References





DOI: https://doi.org/10.18520/cs%2Fv113%2Fi07%2F1337-1353