Yoga’s back pain benefits ‘modest’

Public health

24 Jan 2017

Yoga designed to help chronic lower back pain alleviates symptoms but not enough to be clinically important, a Cochrane study concludes.

According to the authors of the review involving 12 studies and more than 1,000 people the benefits of yoga need to be examined over a longer period, and compared with other forms of exercise.

Commenting on the findings Lead author, Susan Wieland from Cochrane Complementary Medicine at the Center for Integrative Medicine, University of Maryland School of Medicine, Maryland, said: “At the moment we only have low to moderate quality evidence for the effects of yoga before six months as a type of exercise for helping people with chronic lower back pain.

The yoga exercises practised in the studies were developed for low back pain and people should also remember that in each of the studies we reviewed, the yoga classes were led by experienced practitioners.”

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