Effects of eight week yoga therapy program on cardiovascular health in hypertensives

Abstract

<span style="font-size:9.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt" lang="EN-US">Yogic practices may aid in the prevention and management of Hypertension (HT) and reduce cardiovascular complications in the population. The present study was undertaken to evaluate the effects of a comprehensive eight week yoga therapy programme on anthropometric, cardiovascular, biochemical parameters and wellness scores in patients of essential HT. 15 patients receiving standard medical treatment for essential HT were recruited and anthropometric, cardiovascular and biochemical investigations were done before and after a comprehensive yoga therapy programme comprising of three times a week sessions for 8 weeks. A post intervention, retrospective wellness questionnaire was used to evaluate the comparative feelings of the patients after the therapy programme. There was a statistically significant decrease in weight, BMI and all r<span style="mso-bidi-font-weight:bold">esting cardiovascular parameters such as heart rate and blood pressure indices. Total cholesterol (TC), triglyceride (TG), low density (LDL) and very low density (VLDL) lipoproteins reduced significantly while high density (HDL) lipoprotein increased significantly. All the cholesterol based ratios such as TC/HDL, LDL/HDL and <span style="mso-bidi-font-weight:bold">showed healthy improvements.<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:normal"> </b>Post intervention overall wellness scores of the participants indicated that 9% attained complete relief and total satisfaction after the therapy programme while 29% were much better than before. 36% were better than before while 25% had no change in their condition. The main strength of the present study is excellent compliance and regularity of yoga practice by our participants both during directly supervised sessions and at home. Very few yoga studies have reported such excellent compliance and hence our study stands out as a special case. Hence, the all round benefits obtained in our study can be attributed to the dedicated and regular practice of the comprehensive yoga therapy programme that reports a significant improvement in anthropometric and cardiovascular parameters coupled with healthy lipid profile changes in patients of essential HT. It is concluded that a comprehensive yoga therapy programme has potential to enhance the beneficial effects of standard medical management of essential HT and can be used as an effective complementary or integrative therapy programme.

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