Just one yoga class and one jogging session a week can HALVE your risk of heart disease
- Researchers from HG SMS Hospital in Jaipur, India, studied how a combination of yoga and aerobic exercise can impact the health
- They tested 750 patients who already had cardiovascular disease
- The combination of yoga and aerobic exercise lowered patients’ blood pressure, BMI and cholesterol levels
Researchers from HG SMS Hospital in Jaipur, India, presented the study at the 8th Emirates Cardiac Society Congress in collaboration with the American College of Cardiology Middle East Conference.
The study looked at 750 patients who had previously been diagnosed with coronary heart disease.
One group of 225 patients participated in aerobic exercise, another group of 240 patients participated in yoga, and a third group of 285 participated in both yoga and aerobic exercise.
Each group did three, six-month sessions of their assigned exercises.
Yoga was picked as one the the forms of exercise because of its practice of strengthening the body, mind and soul.
Researchers wanted to see if yoga and aerobic exercise would have an effect on coronary risk factors of obese patients with type 2 diabetes.
The findings showed that aerobic exercise only and yoga only groups showed similar reductions in blood pressure, total cholesterol, triglycerides, LDL, weight and waist circumference.
However, the combined yoga and aerobic exercise group showed a two times greater reduction compared to the other groups.
They also showed significant improvement in left ventricular ejection fraction, diastolic function and exercise capacity.
‘Combined Indian yoga and aerobic exercise reduce mental, physical and vascular stress and can lead to decreased cardiovascular mortality and morbidity,’ said co-authors Dr Sonal Tanwar, a scholar in preventative cardiology, and Dr Naresh Sen, a consultant cardiologist, both with HG SMS Hospital.
‘Heart disease patients could benefit from learning Indian yoga and making it a routine part of daily life.’