Abstract
BackgroundMedical treatment of hypertension is not always sufficient to achieve blood pressure control. Despite this, previous studies on supplementary therapies, such as yoga, are relatively few. We investigated the effects of two yoga interventions on blood pressure and quality of life in patients in primary health care diagnosed with hypertension.MethodsAdult patients (age 20–80 years) with diagnosed hypertension were identified by an electronic chart search at a primary health care center in southern Sweden. In total, 83 subjects with blood pressure values of 120–179/≤109 mmHg at baseline were enrolled. At baseline, the patients underwent standardized blood pressure measurement at the health care center and they completed a questionnaire on self-rated quality of life (WHOQOL-BREF). There were three groups: 1) yoga class with yoga instructor (n = 28); 2) yoga at home (n = 28); and 3) a control group (n = 27). The participants were matched at the group level for systolic blood pressure. After 12 weeks of intervention, the assessments were performed again. At baseline a majority of the patients (92%) were on antihypertensive medication, and the patients were requested not to change their medication during the study.ResultsThe yoga class group showed no improvement in blood pressure or self-rated quality of life, while in the yoga at home group there was a decline in diastolic blood pressure of 4.4 mmHg (p < 0.05) compared to the control group. Moreover, the yoga at home group showed significant improvement in self-rated quality of life compared to the control group (p < 0.05).ConclusionsA short yoga program for the patient to practice at home seems to have an antihypertensive effect, as well as a positive effect on self-rated quality of life compared to controls. This implies that simple yoga exercises may be useful as a supplementary blood pressure therapy in addition to medical treatment when prescribed by primary care physicians.Trial registrationClinicalTrials.gov (NCT01302535)
Highlights
Medical treatment of hypertension is not always sufficient to achieve blood pressure control
The yoga at home group showed significant improvements in self-rated quality of life compared to the control group (0.29 ± 0.13 vs. 0.06 ± 0.13 for WHOQOL, Item 1; Observed cases (OC), p < 0.05) (Table 3)
Our results demonstrated a significant reduction in diastolic BP (DBP) in the patients who practiced yoga at home compared to the control group (p < 0.05)
Summary
Medical treatment of hypertension is not always sufficient to achieve blood pressure control. We investigated the effects of two yoga interventions on blood pressure and quality of life in patients in primary health care diagnosed with hypertension. Previous studies have shown that yoga may reduce BP [6,7,8,9] These studies showed significant reduction of systolic BP (SBP) of up to 6 mmHg and a significant reduction of diastolic BP (DBP) of up to 5 mmHg compared to baseline [6,8,9]. Whether these results are clinically significant remains an unanswered question
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