3: Any Proven Medical Benefits?

We have always heard that the practice of yoga can bring out the purpose of health and fitness, as well as modern culture’s aesthetic concern for grace and beauty. Within the last few decades, the association between yoga and good health has become generally accepted. In fact, recently, many claims that yoga can be used as an effective therapy in treating a variety of disease, including asthma, diabetes, depression, osteoarthritis, back pain, and even some forms of cancer.[1] A Christian professor has been sharing with his class how he has been benefited from doing yoga. “I started to do more yoga and stretching was because of my scoliosis… I’ve been lifting weights for more than 30 years…I have become very inflexible…my chiropractor (an extraordinarily strong believer) recommended I do yoga…” So, is there any reliable evidence that practicing yoga can bring physical healing?

Dr. Chopra, professor of medicine and faculty dean for continuing medical education at Harvard Medical School, in his book “Doctor Chopra says: medical facts and myths everyone should know” states that “most of the claims made about yoga have been difficult to disprove – not necessarily because they aren’t accurate, but rather because there has been relatively little serious testing done in the entire area of alternative medicine.”[2] Although there is ample evidence that yoga stretching and breathing techniques would allow practitioners to exercise some degree of control over their heart rate and their level of anxiety, there have been few real efforts to determine its actual medical value.[3] One of the main problems in scientifically determining the physical value of yoga is to know “who conducted the test.”[4]

In the past, many of Dr. Chopra’s students talked about the medical benefits of yoga that have been conducted by people actively promoting yoga. To accurately assess the reporting of a study they need to know who conducted the tests, what they gain from a positive result or lose from a negative result, and how the experiment or study was conducted. Due to this reason, although the results were interesting, they certainly were not conclusive. In general, based on a huge amount of anecdotal evidence, Dr. Chopra believes that “there certainly are psychological benefits to be gained from the regular practice of yoga.” When people who practice yoga feel better, it is natural that some symptoms caused by diseases including cancer, heart disease, depression, and osteoarthritis seem to be reduced.


[1] Sanjiv Chopra, Alan Lotvin, and David Fisher. Doctor Chopra says: medical facts and myths everyone should know. New York: Thomas Dunne Books/St. Martin's Press, 2011. P 297
[2] Ibid. P 298
[3] Ibid. P 299
[4] Ibid.