Maintain Strength and Balance with Yoga

Falls are the most common trauma that sends folks over 65 to hospitals, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In fact, about 33% of older adults will fall during any given year.

At Temple University, researchers designed an Iyengar yoga program for senior women lasting nine weeks. Iyengar yoga uses props like straps, blankets, bolsters, chairs and blocks to ease people into stretches and strengthening poses at their own pace.

After nine weeks, the women had a faster stride, increased flexibility in their legs, and were able to balance better on one leg, which helps to reduce the probability of falls. They also learned how to distribute pressure on the bottom of their feet more evenly, which also aids stability. An added benefit: Some women who had back or knee pain when the study began were pain-free by the time the study ended.

Yoga classes can be too aggressive if you’re not already flexible or strong. If you’re looking for a class, try to find a teacher who specializes in teaching people at your age and fitness level. To locate yoga teachers in your area, try the Yoga Alliance, the only national certifying body for all types of yoga teachers.

Suza Francina, an Iygengar teacher in California, has authored several books about yoga for oldsters, including The New Yoga for People Over 50 and The New Yoga for Healthy Aging: Living Longer and Stronger and Loving Every Day.

Her books are filled with delightful stories about people who started yoga late in life, with specific instructions and photographs that show ways to approach yoga poses with props so that you can get the benefits of many poses that would otherwise be too difficult.

The Anti-Aging Bottom Line: Yoga is an ancient tradition with a lot of modern relevance for healing and strengthening the mind, body and spirit. Yoga is unique in that its practice can be individualized to accomodate the needs of anyone who seeks to improve his or her health. In addition to enhancing strength and flexibility and decreasing the likelihood of falls, you may find that your yoga practice brings a new feeling of overall balance into your life.

Yoga Decreases Menopausal Symptoms In Breast Cancer Survivors - Yoga

Breast cancer survivors often have more severe hot flashes and other menopausal symptoms than other women, yet they have limited treatment choices. Hormone replacement therapy, for example, is not an option for cancer survivors because it may increase their risk for disease recurrence. Therapies widely used to prevent cancer recurrence, such as tamoxifen, also tend to induce or exacerbate menopausal symptoms.

However, new research from Duke University Medical Center and Oregon Health and Science University offers an untraditional source of relief: a tailored yoga program.

"These women have suffered through the difficulties of breast cancer and are left to cope with these daily, extremely disruptive symptoms with few options for relief," said Duke assistant professor Laura Porter, Ph.D., co-author of the study presented at the International Association of Yoga Therapists Symposium for Yoga Therapy and Research. "We knew that some data found yoga helped reduce hot flashes among healthy women but no>Yoga of Awareness" program on breast cancer patients. They also plan to teach the concepts to yoga instructors nationwide.

Natural Allergy Relief: Alternative Allergy Therapies

Homeopathy

Homeopathy is based on the idea that diseases can be cured by giving the substance that causes the disease back to a person in extremely small amounts. This is a similar to the principle used in immunotherapy, except in much smaller doses that have proven to be beneficial with using allergy shots.

Asthma
Three well-designed studies show little to no benefit of homeopathic remedies in the treatment of asthma.

Allergic rhinitis

Some studies show a benefit of homeopathy in the treatment of allergic rhinitis, with benefit over anti-histamines such as chlorpheniramine or equivalence to cromolyn nasal spray. However, numerous other studies show no benefit of homeopathy compared to placebo.

Despite some encouraging results in some small, selected studies, the overall evidence for homeopathy is weak, while evidence for conventional medications in the treatment of allergic rhinitis and asthma is very strong.

Other Techniques

Chiropractic-Spinal Manipulation

More than 100 patients with asthma were studied while being treated with "real" or "fake" chiropractic techniques. There were no differences between the two groups in terms of their asthma symptoms. However, one of these studies did show that the patients who received real chiropractic treatment had decreased sensitivity to an irritant medication (methacholine) used to detect severity of asthma. Another poorly-designed study on chiropractic techniques in asthma showed mild increase in a measurement of lung function in the group receiving treatment, although no symptoms were measured.

Breathing Techniques/Yoga

Breathing techniques and yoga can be beneficial in terms of mental well-being and improvement in quality of life scores for asthmatics. However, studies on techniques such as Buteyko breathing, Sahaja, Hatha and Pranayama yoga fail to show any consistent improvement in asthma symptoms or definite improvement in lung function testing. No studies are available for allergic rhinitis.

Biofeedback/Hypnosis

All studies reviewed on the use of biofeedback and hypnosis in the treatment of asthma were of poor study design and failed to show any benefit.

Miscellaneous Holistic Therapies

There are no well-designed studies on the use of the following for the treatment of asthma or allergic rhinitis, and therefore these techniques should not be considered useful:
aromatherapy
chromotherapy
Bach's flowers
anthroposophy
Hopi candles
hydro-colon
urine therapy
clinical ecology
iridology
While it would seem reasonable to make CAM part of an overall treatment regimen, it does not make sense for these unproven techniques to replace proven conventional therapies for potentially serious diseases (such as asthma). CAM appears to help with the mental and spiritual well-being of patients, which is not to be under-estimated. However, there is no definitive scientific basis for using CAM as the only treatment for asthma or allergic rhinitis. Always consult with a physician before utilizing CAM, especially if using this in place of prescribed therapies.