Yoga eases blood pressure as well as some drugs, new research reveals

15-minute sessions of yoga five times a week for three months cut blood pressure by an average 10 per cent, study finds

For most of us, school science projects went no further than growing cress on a paper plate or messing around with baking soda and vinegar.

But for 16-year-old Ashok Pandey, the school science fair was a chance to change medical practice.

The Canadian high school pupil demonstrated in a trial of 60 people that yoga and breathing exercises can be as effective as some drugs at reducing blood pressure.

A schoolboy found doing 15-minute sessions of yoga five times a week for three months cut blood pressure by an average 10 per cent – a similar effect seen for diuretics, a widely used class of blood pressure drug

The findings were so convincing that this week he presented them at the world’s largest meeting of heart experts, the European Society of Cardiology congress in Munich, attended by 30,000 doctors.

Ashok, who goes to school in the city of Cambridge, Ontario, said yoga is thought to have health benefits for centuries – but has been rarely studied according to modern scientific methods.

‘There isn’t really much research looking at how yoga might have this benefit,’ said Ashok – whose father is a cardiologist.

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‘It’s been looked at as an unknown or as magical in some way.’

The schoolboy found doing 15-minute sessions of yoga five times a week for three months cut blood pressure by an average 10 per cent – a similar effect seen for diuretics, a widely used class of blood pressure drug.

His results were so convincing that he is now working on a 500-person trial to confirm his findings with Laval University in Quebec.

The findings were so convincing he presented them at the world’s largest meeting of heart experts, the European Society of Cardiology congress. in Munich, attended by 30,000 doctors

Cardiologists are particularly impressed that Ashok designed his experiment to seek out the reason for yoga’s power.

Ashok, who won silver medal in the Canada-Wide Science Fair competition for high school projects last year, found a large proportion of the benefit could be attributed to deep breathing.

He split his volunteers into four groups – one doing relaxation exercises, one doing stretching, one doing deep breathing exercises and one doing traditional yoga.

The deep breathing group – who were asked simply to repeatedly inhale in for five seconds, hold their breath for five seconds, and then exhale for five seconds – saw virtually the same benefit as the yoga group.

Ashok said: ‘It is clinically relevant. It should not be used as a replacement for existing treatments, it’s about incorporating yoga into existing programmes.

Professor Metin Avkiran, associate medical director at the British Heart Foundation said: ‘This study suggests that some components of yoga, such as deep breathing and stretching, may individually have some blood pressure lowering effects’

‘It’s not a conclusive study but the results suggest yoga could be an important tool to reduce blood pressure and deep breathing is an important notion that should be further researched.’ Professor Paul Poirier of Laval University, who is working with Ashok on the expanded study, said the 16-year-old was remarkable.

‘This young boy is quite something,’ he said.

‘At the end, it is all a matter of mentorship and providing a facilitating environment. But you need a good basis and hard working people.

‘Helping young people so they can replace us one day is what academic medicine is about.’ Experts said the findings could be easily incorporated into people’s lives.

‘They’re easy to adopt and unlikely to do any harm.’ Ashok’s father Dr Shekhar Pandey, attending the conference with his son, said: ‘I was surprised that the deep breathing had such an impact.

‘I’d assumed yoga’s benefit would be the same as any other stretching exercise, so I was intrigued.

‘It’s trying to bring scientific rigour to a field that historically has been thought of as alternative medicine, which sometimes comes with baggage that it’s not scientifically valid.

‘By trying to bring scientific method to examine these types of alternative health interventions that’s an important step that western medicine needs to start investigating.’

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