Yoga and the effects on Diabetes
Diabetes in its assorted forms affects up to 5 pct of the world population with twelve million diabetics in Western Europe exclusively. Of the different ways in which diabetes presents, non-insulin dependent diabetes (Type 2) is probably the most commonly encountered genetic disease. Type 2 diabetes is many-sided, depending as well on natural factors including obesity, sedentary lifestyles and nutritional imbalances.
One of the studies undertaken to heal diabetes was a joint partnership between a Yoga Trust and an Indian yoga research foundation which observed that practicing yoga for thirty minutes a day for one month helped reduce blood glucose levels in many diabetics.
The yoga diabetic patients participated in one or two 90-minute sessions a week and were asked to exercise at house. The classes included the specific yoga exercises of the spinal twist, the bow and abdominal breathing.
At the end of the 12 weeks blood sugar levels fell significantly in all patients in the group and were slightly raised in a control group which had not joined in the yoga sessions. Three yoga students managed to reduce their medication, including one man who had not changed his drug regime for 20 years.
We have known for a long time that exercise is helpful for diabetics. Yoga therapy may bring down stress levels which have been shown to play a part in maturity onset diabetes. But one drawback is that some patients would find it grueling to keep up the steady sessions required to sustain the gain. All the diabetic patients said they would like to see these classes set up permanently but we don’t have the financial resources.
It is not necessarily the exercise component of the yoga therapy which is the most important, because there is not enough physical exercise in yoga to account for the changes, but we know that stress reduction has a lot to do with it. Hormones increase sugar levels in the blood. People also gain from the stabilization of their moods which yoga brings about, the increased feeling of well-being and a belief of being more in check, which may aid them with their diet control.
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