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Yoga Benefits for Cancer Patients Studied

Posted on: Monday, 3 July 2006, 15:00 CDT

By AMBIKA BEHAL

Suggestions that the ancient Indian practice of yoga can favorably impact the health of cancer patients has taken a new direction with a recent collaboration between Indian and American cancer research foundations.

Houston-based University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center recently announced a research collaboration with India's Swami Vivekananda Yoga Anusandhana Samsthana (Research Foundation), based in Bangalore, to build on a cross-cultural relationship to understand how aspects of yoga practice can help cancer patients.

Yoga is a part of daily life in India. At the back of my mind there was always something that thought yoga could be used in medicine, Dr. Kavita Chandwani, senior research coordinator on the yoga-cancer research program at M.D. Anderson, told United Press International.

Our research is trying to understand what effects yoga creates in the human body, she said, explaining that the relaxation techniques generally show people to be happier -- something that may actually be largely responsible for keeping disease at bay.

Yoga, a centuries-old Indian practice, is comprised of mind-body techniques that incorporate various asanas or stretching poses, as well as breathing-oriented meditative patterns. It is believed to impart physically and mentally calming effects.

How does yoga work for cancer? When a person is stressed the immune system is suppressed; when that stress is removed, patients have a healthier immune system, Dr. H.R. Nagendra, vice chancellor of SVYAS, told UPI.

Scientific research into the relationship between yogic relaxation and cancer began at SVYAS in 1985. The center offered relaxation techniques, including meditation and slow breathing, to eight terminally ill cancer patients who already received radiation therapy and had no other options left.

On the 15th day, one of the breast cancer patients wanted to return to work -- one by one all of them started going back to work within two, three weeks, said Nagendra. All of the patients lived and one of the bone cancer patients died three years back, at the age of 77.

Following this small trial, the director of the Kidwai Memorial Institute of Oncology in Bangalore taught yoga to a group of 100 patients. Lectures on yoga, followed by meditation and emotion training programs developed at SVYAS, were begun at the hospital. The feedback was positive, said Nagendra.

After M.D. Anderson asked him to make a presentation on the yoga study at the hospital in Texas, there was a lot of excitement about the possibility of using yoga relaxation techniques, said Nagendra. A group went to Bangalore, and Dr. Lorenzo Cohen, director of the Integrative Medicine Program and associate professor in the Departments of Behavioral Science and Palliative Care & Rehabilitation Medicine at M.D. Anderson, took on the establishment of a research collaboration.

Cancer and its treatments are associated with considerable distress, impaired quality of life and reduced physical function. This is particularly true for women with breast cancer who receive multi-modality treatment over an extended period of time, said Cohen. With our studies, we think that we could help ameliorate the treatment-related side effects that accumulate in cancer patients over time.

In a 2004 study at M.D. Anderson focused on breast cancer patients, patients showed improvement in physical and general health functions, and even marginal improvement in fatigue levels, said Chandwani.

So will yoga ever become a standard part of mainstream medical cancer care in American hospitals?

I see it coming, said Chandwani, but it is always good to document the benefits before assimilating them into the standard of care. The study has another year, year and a half to go, then we will reassess.

E-mail: consumerhealth@upi.com

Source: United Press International

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