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Showing posts with the label yoga-health-cochrane-meta-analysis-reviews-not useful

Obesity epidemic of India

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Obesity in India is on the rise. It has reached enormous proportions. As I sit and count at airports, the number of women who look obviously overweight and obese, the figures I get is 8 out of 10. And this is around same in children of all sexes and around 6 in 10 men show clearcut overweight and obesity that is obvious even to naked eye. Anthropometric measurements might reveal more of them.  What are the likely causes? I have a theory that starts analysing these cases right from the 2000s or previous century. Junk food eating and sedantry lifestyle had already given an upward push to obesity in last century. And this also gave rise to diabetes mellitus in both men and women. Hence, such mothers also had diabetes in pregnancy. Some who did not have diabetes otherwise had gestational diabetes. From 2000 to 2026 prevalence of gestational diabetes has risen in india. It has even spread to rural areas and recent national data gives a figure of 22.4% which is almost 1 in 4 pregnant mot...

Yoga and health: Is Yoga really useful? A meta-analysis in various conditions

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 Yoga has been claimed to aid in a number of health issues and said to be good for the well-being of a person. It has its origin in spirituality and mental well-being and some scattered studies on its benefits have been carried out in the world with variable results. Cochrane has done systematic reviews of it in various medical conditions.  Ian Chalmers founded the  Cochrane Collaboration in 1993  to do a systematic review of all the randomized controlled studies in the field of health care. In paramedical cases, even non-randomized and observational studies were included.  Let us have a look at it:  Cochrane Collaboration [Source: Researchgate] Yoga in depression Cochrane has found in 2013 that there was moderate evidence of the short-term use of yoga in depression as compared to other medicines. But there was limited evidence as regards its comparison with relaxation techniques. None of the studies talked about its safety in this condition and the lo...