Study of yoga asanas in assessment of pulmonary function in NIDDM patients

Certain yoga asanas if practiced regularly are known to have beneficial effects on human body. These yoga practices might be interacting with various, somato-neuro-endocrine mechanisms to have therapeutic effects. The present study done in twenty four NIDDM patients of 30 to 60 year old, provides metabolic and clinical evidence of improvement in glycaemic control and pulmonary functions. These middle-aged subjects were type II diabetics on antihyperglycaemic and dietary regimen. Their baseline fasting and postprandial blood glucose and glycosylated Hb were monitored along with pulmonary function studies. The expert gave these patients training in yoga asanas and were pursed 30-40 min/day for 40 days under guidance. These asanas consisted of 13 well known postures, done in a sequence. After 40 days of yoga asanas regimen, the parameters were repeated. The results indicate that there was significant decrease in fasting blood glucose levels (basal 190.08 ± 90.8 in mg/dl to 141.5 ± 79.8 in mg/dl). The postprandial blood glucose levels also decreased (276.54 ± 101.0 in mg/dl to 201.75 ± 104.1 in mg/dl), glycosylated hemoglobin showed a decrease (9.03 ± 1.4% to 7.83 ± 2.6%). The FEV1, FVC, PEFR, MVV increased significantly (1.81 ± 0.4 lt to 2.08 ± 0.4 lt, 2.20 ± 0.6 lt to 2.37 ± 0.5 lt, 3.30 ± 1.0 lt/s to 4.43 ± 1.4 lt/s and 64.59 ± 25.7 lt min to 76.28 ± 28.1 lt/min respectively). FEV1/FVC% improved (85 ± 0.2% to 89 ± 0.1%). These findings suggest that better glycaemic control and pulmonary functions can be obtained in NIDDM cases with yoga asanas and pranayama. The exact mechanism as to how these postures and controlled breathing, interact with somato-neuro-endocrine mechanism affecting metabolic and pulmonary functions remains to be worked out.