Yoga Lowers Heart Disease Risk as much as Conventional Exercise

by Nina

Walk Along the Banks of the Seine Near Asnieres by Van Gogh

“A recent review of yoga and cardiovascular disease published in the European Journal of Preventive Cardiology indicates that yoga may help lower heart disease risk as much as conventional exercise, such as brisk walking.” — Julie Corliss, Harvard Health Blog

Well, that sentence from More than a stretch: Yoga’s benefits may extend to the heart certainly merits a closer look, don’t you think? Because even though we’ve written extensively about the benefits of yoga for cardiovascular health (see About Yoga for Heart Health), I’ve never actually seen scientific proof that yoga really is as good for heart health as—as this quote says—a brisk walk.

The report on the Harvard Health blog was referring to the study The effectiveness of yoga in modifying risk factors for cardiovascular disease and metabolic syndrome: A systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials in the European Journal of Preventive Cardiology. This turns out to be one of those review studies that assess other existing studies, in this case, 37 randomized controlled trials (RCTs) in the systematic review and 32 in the meta-analysis, which can provide a very good picture of what the current research is turning up. The review study itself says:

“Whereas previous reviews have looked at a single or a few risk factors, our review updates the existing literature and encompasses numerous CVD and metabolic risk factors that can be used to calculate overall CVD risk.”

The studies being reviewed looked at different types of yoga, including both gentler and more energetic forms, and that the participants ranged from young, healthy individuals to older people with health conditions. Interestingly, no restrictions were placed on the style of yoga practiced, frequency, or duration. (Although I guess we can assume no studies were done with people practicing yoga just once a month!) In the review, the control groups were separated into aerobic exercise (physical training, aerobic exercise, cycling, running, brisk walking) and non-aerobic exercise groups. To obtain an estimate of its effectiveness versus active controls and versus non-active controls, the researchers was compared yoga to these two control groups separately.

Overall, the people who took yoga classes saw improvements in several factors that affect heart disease risk: losing an average of five pounds, shaving five points off their blood pressure, and lowering their levels of harmful LDL cholesterol by 12 points. And no significant difference was found between yoga and exercise!

For those of you who are interested in more detail, the study itself concluded that compared to non-exercise controls, yoga showed significant improvement for:

• body mass index (−0.77 kg/m2 (95% confidence interval −1.09 to −0.44))
• systolic blood pressure (−5.21 mmHg (−8.01 to −2.42))
• low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (−12.14 mg/dl (−21.80 to −2.48)) and high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (3.20 mg/dl (1.86 to 4.54))
• body weight (−2.32 kg (−4.33 to −0.37)), 
• diastolic blood pressure (−4.98 mmHg (−7.17 to −2.80)), 
• total cholesterol (−18.48 mg/dl (−29.16 to −7.80)), 
• triglycerides (−25.89 mg/dl (−36.19 to −15.60)
• heart rate (−5.27 beats/min (−9.55 to −1.00))

The original review study concluded: 

“Our review finds emerging evidence to support a role for yoga in improving common modifiable risk factors of CVD and metabolic syndrome.

“We believe that these findings have important implications for the acceptance of yoga as an effective therapeutic intervention. This review demonstrates the potential of yoga to have an impact on concrete, physiological outcomes that represent some of the greatest health burdens today.”

The Harvard Health blog interviewed Dr. Gloria Yeh, a co-author of the review and an associate professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School. She said, “Yoga is unique because it incorporates physical activity, breathing, and meditation.” And she explained that each of these elements positively affects cardiovascular risk factors, so combining them was bound to show a benefit. 

See About Yoga for Heart Health for an overview of and links to all the posts—including practices designed especially for heart health—that we have on our blog.

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