Practicing yoga tends to reduce frailty and improve measures of strength that help predict longevity in older adults, according to a new analysis published in the journal Annals of Internal Medicine.
Yoga and other mind-body practices (such as qi gong and meditation) have been linked to a number of potential health benefits, including lower stress levels and other measures of mental health. Yoga can help increase both flexibility and strength, and there is some evidence that it may be particularly beneficial for people with diabetes. One study showed that practicing yoga is linked not only to better blood glucose levels in people with diabetes, but also to other measures of metabolic health like liver enzyme and blood lipid (cholesterol and triglyceride) levels. While taking a yoga class meant for beginners is an excellent way to start practicing yoga, you can also try some poses and sequences on your own, or look for a video online that guides you through some gentle yoga.
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For the latest analysis, researchers reviewed 33 different studies on yoga that included a total of 2,384 participants ages 65 and older. While the exact kind of yoga program that participants followed varied from study to study, all of the studies followed a randomized controlled design — meaning that participants were randomly assigned either to practice yoga or not to do so, and outcomes related to health were recorded in both groups. The researchers who performed this analysis were particularly interested in the effect of yoga on walking speed and the ability to rise from a chair, since both of these measures are linked to less frailty and living longer in older adults. They also looked at measures of balance, hand grip strength, and leg strength and endurance, among other measures.
Yoga linked to various improved health measures
The researchers found that there was “moderate-certainty evidence” that being assigned to do yoga resulted in improved waking speed and leg strength and endurance. There was also “low-certainty evidence” that yoga improved measures of balance and “very low-certainty evidence” that it improved hand grip strength. The researchers noted that some of the barriers to making conclusions with higher certainty included differences in study design and yoga style, small numbers of participants in some studies, and deficiencies in how outcomes were reported in some studies.
“Since yoga is an integrative practice that impacts multiple areas of health, it may be effective for preventing a syndrome like frailty, which has multiple causes,” said study author Julia Loewenthal, MD, a geriatrician at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, in a news release. “It’s never too late to start a yoga practice or exercise regimen to help with your overall health status in your later years.”
Want to learn more about the health benefits of yoga? Read “Yoga for Diabetes.”
