Home » Pain »

Yoga Relieves Lower Back Pain

November 5, 2009 6:38 pm 6 comments

Share This:

Subscribe:

Author:

Tags:

We already know what doesn't work for lower back pain. Here's something that does: yoga. Hey, the price is right! The Los Angeles Times reports on research conducted at Boston University's medical school, where investigators divided 30 people–average age 44– into two groups, one that did
hatha yoga, taking classes that included poses and
breathing techniques, and one that continued their usual treatment– seeing
their doctor and taking medication. The paper reports that after 12 weeks, those in the yoga group had far lower pain
scores than the control — their pain decreased by a third,
compared with 5 perceYoga9 nt in the control group. The yoga group also decreased
their use of pain medication by 80 percent, while the control group's
medication didn't change. At the end of the study, 73 percent of the yoga
group said they had overall improvement in back pain, compared with 27 percent
of the control group.

Read more in the Los Angeles Times.

6 Comments

  • harry@peakhealthgroup.net
    November 6, 2009
    10:26 am

    Try grabbing a horizontal bar and hanging down. You can keep your feet on the ground to minimize the weight supported by your shoulders. I don’t know if it’s ever been studied but it works for me.

    Reply
  • sfauthor
    November 8, 2009
    10:56 pm

    Nice posting. Do you know about these yoga books?
    http://www.yogavidya.com/freepdfs.html

    Reply
  • r4i
    November 10, 2009
    4:33 am

    Hi,
    Yoga is beneficial for the health in ways that modern science is just beginning to understand. Even though it has beenapplied with therapeutic intention for thousand of years, Yoga Therapy is only just now emerging as a discipline initself.
    More health care practitioners are starting to include yogic techniques in their approach to healing — andmore yoga teachers give a therapeutic intention to their teaching. People who have never tried yoga before are startingto consider including Yoga in their treatment plan.
    As science begins to document the importance of understanding the interrelation of all existing things, it looks to Yogawith an intrigued eye, for Yoga speaks Unity in every word. As yoga techniques are researched and new data is gathered,it becomes easier for science and the medical establishment to understand and accept the benefits of Yoga Therapy.Yet there is still not one consensual definition of the discipline.
    In order to arrive to an adequate definition and tocome up with proper standards for Yoga Therapy, it is crucial at this early stage to properly address some delicateprofessional and ethical issues. At the same time it is important to educatethegeneralpublic about Yoga Therapy’sbenefits and careful use.
    so this article will really helpful to me..

    Reply
  • sbrand1@bellsouth.net
    January 3, 2010
    9:03 am

    Yoga exacerbated my lower back problems and continues to set me back.

    Reply
  • Chris
    January 8, 2010
    2:19 am

    Yoga is a very nice and natural way of treatment to your body and it gives a lot of benefits. That’s many stress people and women used yoga as their way of removing stress and even body pains. Thanks nice article!

    Reply
  • elbow injury
    February 10, 2010
    2:52 am

    Yoga helps not only someone’s mind but his energy as well, some people use it when experiencing pain.

    Reply

Leave a Reply


Recent Posts

  • Pain Walnuts Cut Prostate Cancer Risk

    Walnuts Cut Prostate Cancer Risk

    Walnuts, of all things, appear to slow the growth of prostate cancer tumors–in mice at least. Researchers at the University of California at Davis have found that mice genetically programmed to develop prostate cancer had smaller, slower growing tumors if they consumed a diet containing walnuts. A U.C. Davis news release reports that when researchers at the school, working with colleagues at the USDA Western Regional Research Center in Albany, Calif., studied tumor size in mice fed different diets for [...]

    Read more →
  • Pain

    Research: Massage Reduces Inflammation In Tired Muscles

    Yes, it feels good, and yes, it can be pricey, but massage also does some important muscle reclamation work after a particularly tough workout. Researchers at the Buck Institute for Research on Aging at McMaster University in Hamilton Ontario conducted genetic analysis of muscle biopsies taken from the quadriceps of eleven young men after they had exercised to exhaustion on a stationary bicycle. A McMaster news release reports on the research, for which one of their legs was randomly chosen [...]

    Read more →
  • Pain

    Exercise May Slow Prostate Cancer

    The findings are preliminary, but they are also provocative: research conducted at the University of California at San Francisco suggests that men who do vigorous exercise three times a week have an increase in the expression of certain genes that are known to suppress tumors, including some breast cancer tumors that similar to prostate cancer tumors. HealthDay reports that when researchers compared prostate genes from 70 men with low-risk prostate cancer to normal prostate genes from 70 men they found [...]

    Read more →
  • Pain

    Fat Hurts: Overweight People Feel 20 Percent More Pain

    How much more does it hurt to be fat? Twenty percent, according to researchers at Stony Brook University. And that’s just if you’re overweight. Obese people hurt even more: 68 percent more for Obese 1 group, 136 percent more for Obese 2 group, and 254 percent more for Obese 3 group, as defined by the World Health Organization. A Stony Brook news release reports that when researchers at the school analyzed data about body mass index and the experience of [...]

    Read more →
  • Pain

    Study: Heart Attack May Be Closer Than You Think

    Forget what your doctor told you about your risk of heart attack. Researchers at Northwestern University have published a study in the New England Journal of Medicine asserting that the common medical practice of focusing on the next ten years of a patient’s life has been giving people a false sense of security about their chances of having a heart attack or stroke. A Northwestern news release reports that when the scientists measured risk factors for cardiovascular disease — blood [...]

    Read more →
  • Pain

    For Back Pain, Try A Kettlebell Workout

    Kettlebells, known as “girya” in their native Russia, are basically cannonballs with handles attached to them, and they’ve been used as long as anyone can remember to train Russian athletes. Now researchers in Denmark have found something else they’re good for: pumping up core muscles so well that back pain is significantly reduced. The New York Times reports on the Danish study, in which 40 middle-aged women with back and shoulder pain were randomly assigned to one of two groups. [...]

    Read more →
  • Gear Study: People Can’t Walk And Text At The Same Time

    Study: People Can’t Walk And Text At The Same Time

    Driving and texting at the same time is understood to be dangerous, if not deadly. But what about walking and texting? Researchers at Stony Brook University put 33 men and women, all experienced texters, through a simple test to see how much texting would influence walking. A Stony Brook news release reports that the test subjects were shown a target on the floor eight meters away. Then, after obstructing vision of the target and floor, they were told to walk [...]

    Read more →
  • Pain How To Tell If You’re Overtraining

    How To Tell If You’re Overtraining

    The question of how much training is too much training is a tough one, but as Gina Kolata warns in her Personal Best column, it’s an important one, because overtraining is worse than under training. In fact, it can be worse than no training at all. Kolata quotes William Kraemer, a professor of kinesiology at the University of Connecticut, explaining that “People think a good workout is, ‘I am in a pile of sweat and puking.” Wrong. John Raglin, a [...]

    Read more →