Yoga has become a popular wellness trend, with enthusiasts touting a range of health benefits from stress reduction and improved posture to stronger muscles and calorie burning.
Over the last decade, yoga has evolved from a weekly workout in comfy tracksuits to a highly idealized physical and spiritual pursuit. Fitness fanatics now practice yoga in all sorts of bizarre forms, including hot yoga, cold yoga, and even goat yoga, making it a go-to exercise for many.
For some, yoga is not just an exercise but a lifestyle, complete with trendy yogi gear and protein-packed, gluten-free, dairy-free pumpkin seed smoothies. Practicing yoga and meditation has been shown to reduce stress, improve brain function, and provide a respite from daily routines.
A meta-analysis of 33 randomized controlled trials (RCTs) showed that yoga enhanced gait speed and lower leg strength in sedentary older adults.
But yoga didn’t seem to be better than things like exercise or tai chi for signs of frailty. The study was published in the Annals of Internal Medicine.
Chronic illness, disability, and frailty are more prevalent in the elderly population. Up to 50% of persons 80 years of age and older have frailty, hence its prevention and treatment are top priorities in both public health and clinical practice.
Yoga is already used to help older people improve their balance and mobility. It could be used as a way to prevent or treat the disease.
In order to examine the existing trial data on the efficacy of yoga-based therapies on frailty in older persons, researchers from Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School analyzed 33 randomized controlled trials (RCTs) including 2,384 participants aged 65 years or older.
The authors evaluated the effects of frailty indicators such as gait speed, handgrip strength, balance, lower limb strength and endurance, and multicomponent physical performance measurements.
According to the authors’ research, there is moderate evidence to suggest that yoga can enhance gait speed, lower body strength, and endurance when compared to education-only or inactive control groups. However, the benefits of yoga for balance and handgrip strength are not as clear.
Despite the lack of a distinct benefit for any single yoga style, the authors advise doctors to think about advising Iyengar-based forms with a home practice that may be tailored for older adult populations.
These results add to the increasing body of evidence that yoga may help with healthy aging and frailty prevention.
Source: 10.7326/M22-2553
Image Credit: Getty
