Yoga May Be Helpful in Preventing Recurrent Breast Cancer

The road following recovery from breast cancer, or any type of cancer, is often tiring. Cancer survivors can be weak from previous treatments. Yet Janice Kiecolt-Glaser of Ohio State University believes that practicing yoga is the key to becoming healthier after recovery.  

Her study was published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology and provided evidence that yoga is beneficial for breast cancer survivors. In the study, 200 breast cancer survivors ranging from 27 to 76 years old were examined in groups; one group participated in a 12-week hatha yoga program, and the other was a wait list control group (in other words, they didn't participate in any activity).

Questionnaires and blood samples were taken before treatment, post-treatment, and three months post-treatment in order to obtain accurate results through a varied sample pool. Kiecolt-Glaser hypothesized before the study that the participants who underwent the yoga treatment would experience less inflammation, depressive symptoms and fatigue as opposed to those who did not participate in the yoga group.

It's perhaps not surprising that Kiecolt-Glaser thought that yoga would help. Previous work has shown that yoga can help with improved flexibility, relaxation, sleep, muscle strength and possible drops in blood pressure. Fitness levels of cancer survivors are 30 percent lower than those of inactive people with no cancer history, so doing a relatively low impact exercise like yoga could potentially help.

The blood tests revealed that the yoga group experienced higher vitality, lower fatigue and less inflammation than those in the control group. The researchers also noted that the more women practiced yoga, the more likely these aspects would improve. Perhaps most importantly, yoga helped cancer survivors get better rest. Sleep among cancer survivors is typically affected due to high inflammation and fatigue, aspects that are significantly lowered after practicing yoga.

Despite the study focusing solely on breast cancer patients, previous studies have shown that inflammation contributes to age-related diseases such as heart disease and diabetes. Kiecolt-Glaser's study may have had overarching discoveries in determining that yoga can benefit everybody and not just cancer survivors.

To read more about the study, visit this Live Science article.