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Eight weeks of intensive yoga practice can significantly reduce the severity of physical and mental symptoms in patients with active rheumatoid arthritis (RA), according to a new study published in the journal Restorative neurology and neuroscience.
Rheumatoid arthritis, a chronic and debilitating autoimmune disease, causes inflammation of the joints and can lead to painful deformities and immobility, especially fingers, wrists, ankles and feet.
Many RA patients also suffer from depression, placing a significant health burden on patients, their caregivers, health care systems and society as a whole. Existing medical treatments are limited in that they do not cure the psychological component of the disease and can lead to many side effects.
Depression also appears to decrease patients' adherence to medical treatment. This can further aggravate the health effects and increase the severity of the disease.
After participating in the yoga program, RA patients experienced notable improvements in the levels of certain inflammatory biomarkers, daily functioning, and disease activity. The results demonstrate the preventive, curative and rehabilitative potential of yoga to achieve optimal health.
"Our results show measurable improvements for patients in the test group, suggesting an immuno-regulatory role in the practice of yoga in the treatment of RA," said lead researcher, Rima Dada, MD, PhD, professor in the department. of Anatomy of the Indian Institute of Medical Sciences Center (AIIMS) in New Delhi, India.
"An intensive yoga regimen combined with systematic drug therapy induces molecular remission and restores immunological tolerance. In addition, it reduced the severity of depression by promoting neuroplasticity. "
Dada noted that high disease activity and underlying depression are linked to increased disability, reduced quality of life, as well as reduced recovery and treatment response rates.
This was a randomized trial of mind-body intervention to evaluate the effects of practicing 120 minutes of yoga, five days a week, for eight weeks, on 72 RA patients. Test and control groups received routine drug treatments (disease modifying antirheumatic drugs or DMARDs).
The results show a significant improvement in several biomarkers of RA, including neuroplasticity, inflammation, immunity, cellular health and aging. The yoga regimen was also linked to a reduction in the severity of depression, disease activity and disability quotient in RA patients.
Improvements in mental health and the severity of the illness also made the yoga group more docile in their treatment and allowed them to perform more daily tasks without much difficulty.
"This study offers a new option. Pharmacological treatments can be complemented by alternative and complementary interventions, such as yoga, to relieve physical and psychosomatic symptoms, "said Dada.
Source: IOS Press
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