Robert Bennoun of the 3MDG Fund has replied to my recent rant about the lack of evidence for the health benefits of yoga. I wrote "Yoga, or mindful stretching, is nice. There is very little scientific evidence that it improves health."

Robert has replied:

"Strange, I’ve seen lots of what looks like scientific evidence https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/13-benefits-of-yoga."

The article that Robert has presented summarises the potential individual benefits of yoga using the words can, could, and may.

The gold standard for health scientists are systematic reviews of evidence, including ones by the Cochrane collaboration. An extract from the recent review of yoga:

"The reviews are mostly not designed to look for effects on health and well being in the general population. However, there is evidence that yoga is beneficial in specific medical conditions (for example, it stands out that yoga probably has benefits for back function in people with chronic low back pain) and there is also evidence that people with a range of conditions (e.g., asthma, breast cancer) may experience improved quality of life when using yoga."

"There is low- to moderate-certainty evidence that yoga compared to non-exercise controls results in small to moderate improvements in back-related function at three and six months. Yoga may also be slightly more effective for pain at three and six months, however the effect size did not meet predefined levels of minimum clinical importance. It is uncertain whether there is any difference between yoga and other exercise for back-related function or pain, or whether yoga added to exercise is more effective than exercise alone. Yoga is associated with more adverse events than non-exercise controls, but may have the same risk of adverse events as other back-focused exercise. Yoga is not associated with serious adverse events. There is a need for additional high-quality research to improve confidence in estimates of effect, to evaluate long-term outcomes, and to provide additional information on comparisons between yoga and other exercise for chronic non-specific low back pain."

http://www.cochrane.org/news/cochrane-library-special-collection-yoga-improving-health-and-well-being

Low back pain stands out. And also asthma and breast cancer. I don't think this is a lot of evidence.

Jamie