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Practicing yoga may be one way to prevent weight gain in middle age, according to the findings of a new study.
Although the connection appears indirect, yoga practitioners are apparently able to avoid — or at least minimise — one-pound-a-year that most people gain between the ages of 45 and 55.
The researchers used data from more than 15,000 men and women aged 53 to 57 who reported their weight at the age of 45 and their current weight. They were asked their pattern of physical activity. The researchers then assessed their diet using a detailed food questionnaire.
Practicing yoga for four or more years, for at least 30 minutes once a week, was associated with a 3.1-pound lower weight gain among people who weighed normal at 45. The yoga practitioners who were overweight at 45 lost an average of five pounds, as opposed to an average gain of 13 pounds in overweight non-practitioners. Being overweight was defined as having a body mass index of 25 or greater.
Dr. Alan R. Kristal, the lead author on the study and the associate director of the cancer prevention programme at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, emphasised that yoga was not a magic weight control technique. “There are many weight control strategies,” he said. “But none allows you to escape the laws of thermodynamics. If you consume more energy than you expend, then it will be stored as fat.”
He added that yoga offered “a safe and comfortable way for people who have never been physically active to begin regular physical activity.”
Not surprisingly, the study found significant differences in lifestyle between those who practiced the discipline and those who did not. Yoga practitioners engaged in more physical activity apart from yoga than non-practitioners. Long-time participants had an 11 percent lower energy intake from fat and a 45 percent higher energy intake from fruits and vegetables.
Participants who practiced yoga also ate more, consistent with higher exercise levels. But even after statistical adjustments were made to account for this, the difference in weight gain between practitioners and non-practitioners persisted.
The authors conceded that their study, published in the July/August issue of Alternative Therapies, has many limitations. Although there were more than 1,000 people in the study who did some yoga, almost half did less than 30 minutes at a session, while normal yoga sessions usually last 60 to 90 minutes. Only 132 of these people maintained the practice longer than four years.
Finally, yoga promotes a sense of well being, and encourages commitment and discipline, qualities helpful in making lifestyle changes and sticking to them, the researchers said.
“In that context,” Kristal said, “some of the benefits of yoga practice may help people with some of the more difficult aspects of weight loss.”
—NYT
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