A review of yoga programs for four leading risk factors of chronic diseases

Heart disease, stroke, and diabetes are the major causes of mortality in the United States. Obesity, high blood pressure (BP), excessive hyperglycemia, and high cholesterol are all common causes of chronic illnesses. These disorders are often linked to one another. There were favorable associations between body mass index (BMI) and hypertension occurrence in a prospective cohort research focused on males. Yoga is a kind of physical exercise that is quickly gaining popularity and offers many health advantages. However, healthcare professionals have been reluctant to acknowledge yoga's potential to enhance health, and few treatments that fully exploit its advantages have been created. The goal of this article is to examine existing yoga research and assess the impact of yoga treatments on key chronic disease risk variables (overweight, hypertension, high glucose level and high cholesterol). A thorough search turned up 32 articles that were published between 1980 and April 2007. Yoga treatments are usually successful in decreasing body weight, blood pressure, glucose levels, and high cholesterol, according to the research, but just a handful looked at long-term adherence. Furthermore, there were few studies that covered different groups at high risk for diabetes and its associated health issues.