Yoga Benefits People Suffering from Hypertension, Diabetes

Yoga training may help manage blood pressure and sugar levels, stated new research. The research supports the beneficial role of yoga in managing metabolic syndrome.

In adults with metabolic syndrome and high-normal blood pressure one year of yoga training decreased pro-inflammatory adipokines and increased an anti-inflammatory adipokine, revealed new study.

According to the researchers, including Rashmi Supriya from the Hong Kong Polytechnic University, one year of yoga training decreased pro-inflammatory adipokines -- signalling proteins released by fat tissue -- and increased an anti-inflammatory adipokine in adults with metabolic syndrome and high-normal blood pressure.

Yoga for Stress
Tap into the powers of mind–body therapy called yoga and find out how you can use yoga for effective stress management.

‘Yoga classes reduce chronic inflammation and help regulate blood pressure and blood sugar levels.’

The findings support the beneficial role of yoga in managing metabolic syndrome by favourably modulating adipokines, the researchers mentioned.

Metabolic syndrome is a cluster of conditions -- increased blood pressure, high blood sugar, excess body fat around the waist and abnormal cholesterol -- that occur together, increasing your risk of heart disease, stroke and diabetes.

"These findings help to reveal the response of adipokines to long-term yoga exercise, which underpins the importance of regular exercise to human health," said senior author Parco Siu from the University of Hong Kong.

Quiz on Health Benefits of Yoga
Yoga, the ancient spiritual science of India, is being practiced by innumerable people throughout the world. Why is it so popular? Can it cure cancer? Does it help with mental illness? Get the answers through this quiz.

For the study, published in the Scandinavian Journal of Medicine and Science in Sports, researchers investigated the effect of yoga on people suffering from metabolic syndrome with high-normal blood pressure by exploring modulations in pro-inflammatory adipokines (leptin, chemerin, visfatin and plasminogen activator inhibitor-1 or PAI-1) and an anti-inflammatory adipokine (adiponectin).

Participants in the yoga group underwent a yoga training programme with three one-hour yoga sessions weekly for a year.

Advertisements

Blood Sugar Chart
The blood sugar chart gives you the fasting glucose values and glucose tolerance test values for normal people and people with early diabetes and established diabetes. Also use the calculator to find out if you have diabetes.

The participants' serum were harvested and assessed for adipokines. Generalised estimating equation (GEE) was used to examine the interaction effect between one-year time (pre vs post) and intervention (control vs yoga).

GEE analyses revealed significant interaction effects between one-year time and yoga intervention for the decreases in leptin and chemerin and the increase in adiponectin concentration in the serum examined.