Conscious Choice Seattle: New Study: Yoga Watches Your Back

January 2006 | Choice News

New Study: Yoga Watches Your Back

It figures to be a happy new yoga year for asana enthusiasts. Brand-new research from the Group Health Cooperative’s Center for Health Studies, right here in Seattle, reveals that yoga is significantly more effective for low back pain than conventional exercise.

While many doctors encourage patients to stretch and strengthen to ease an aching back, results were not substantial and no one form of exercise was proven to be clearly better than another.

Until now. The study, published in the decidedly mainstream Annals of Internal Medicine, makes a superior case for the supposedly alternative healing art.

One big plus: Regular practice cuts down on the need for drugs prescribed by many American doctors, including nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, pain killers and muscle relaxants.

“Most people have experienced back pain at some point in their lives,” explains Karen Sherman, Ph.D., a Group Health researcher and the lead author of the study. “Sometimes the pain goes away in a few days, but sometimes it lasts for weeks. Unfortunately, the treatments offered by modern Western medicine are only modestly effective.”

While it’s estimated that about one million people currently practice yoga for back pain relief—these folks clearly are onto something good—scientists continue to question the value of yoga as effective back pain treatment. Sherman’s study, the largest randomized controlled trial to date, helps to silence the doubters.

The study involved 101 adults with low back pain who were randomly assigned to one of three groups. The first group attended 12 weekly 75-minute yoga classes, plus participated in home exercise practice. Fewer people in this group used pain relievers during the three months.

The second group attended 12 weekly 75-minute sessions of aerobic, strengthening and stretching exercises, along with doing the home practice. The third group received a self-care book with guidelines for fitness, lifestyle and managing flare-ups.

After 12 weeks, the yoga group was measurably better able to do daily activities involving the back than those in the conventional exercise or education groups. After 26 weeks, this group had better back-related function and less pain.

The yoga participants learned 17 poses from viniyoga, a style that’s easy to learn and accommodates various body types and athletic levels.

“Although exercise is one of the few proven treatments for chronic low back pain, its effects are often small and we haven’t known whether one form is better than another,” Sherman says. “So we designed a study to evaluate the effectiveness and safety of a gentle program of yoga for people with this condition.”

For people with back pain who are interested in learning yoga, Sherman recommends selecting an instructor who is experienced working with students who have this condition. Some poses or asanas can be too challenging for tender backs, at least in early weeks of a new yoga practice.

The study was funded by a grant from the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine, which is part of the National Institutes of Health. Researchers include Group Health’s Daniel C. Cherkin, Ph.D; Janet Erro, RN; Diana Miglioretti, Ph.D; and University of Washington professor of medicine Richard A. Deyo.

—Heather Nordell

Digging Out from Divorce

There are always exceptions to the rule—and we all know newly divorced people who seem a lot happier—but new research shows that typically people do not bounce all the way back from divorce.
A study published in the journal Psychological Science shows a person’s happiness level drops as the divorce approaches, then rises over time. How much time is case by case.

What’s surprising is most participants in the study did not return to measured baseline happiness or life satisfaction levels before the divorce.

Michigan State psychology professor Richard Lucas was lead researcher, using data from an 18-year study of 30,000 German adults. The data included face-to-face interviews and written surveys.

Lucas found the first year after divorce is one of significant healing, yet “people’s satisfaction ended up .22 to .34 points lower than baseline levels” over the long term. He found no unhappiness factor related to either age or gender.

“We should not assume that time naturally heals all wounds,” says Lucas. “Instead, some people may never adapt to some life events, at least not without intervention.”

—Andrew Mulholland

Innovative Thinkers at Town Hall

The Town Hall program gets off to a deep-thinking 2006 start this month with appearances by bestselling author Jared Diamond and University of British Columbia professor Lawrence Frank.

Diamond is the UCLA geography professor and Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Guns, Germs and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies. His new book, Collapse: How Societies Choose to Succeed or Fail, will be the subject of, count ‘em, not one, but two lectures Jan. 12 (5:30 and 8 p.m.) as part of the Seattle Science Lecture Series.

The first book examined how and why Western civilizations developed the technologies and “immunities” to dominate the world. The new book examines the civilizations that failed, asking such questions as what happened to the Anasazi? The Viking colonies of Greenland? Rwanda? Tickets are $5 at the door, with the box office open an hour before each appearance. The Seattle Science Lectures are presented by Town Hall with the Pacific Science Center, University Book Store and the Post-Intelligencer.

Frank’s talk connects traffic, noise and lack of open space and walkways to health. He is a leading researcher of urban walkability and how it can enhance personal health and save significant public health tax dollars—and, conversely, how such trends as suburban developments with no sidewalks or community density are putting people at greater health risks.

His Jan. 25 lecture will be the first installment of the “Our Health, Our Environment: Making the Link” series sponsored by the Seattle Biotech Legacy Foundation and organized by the Institute for Children’s Environmental Health. Frank, the J. Armand Bombardier Chair in Sustainable Transportation at UBC, will highlight his pioneering research study for King County that has been reported by Conscious Choice editor and P-I columnist Bob Condor. Tickets are $10 in advance and $15 at the door. For more information, visit www.iceh.org or call 360-331-7904.

— Andrew Mulholland

What’s Brewingin Alternative Energy

There’s no shortage of terrific microbreweries in Seattle and the Pacific Northwest. But eco-conscious beer drinkers might want to save a bit of room in the fridge for the Sierra Nevada brand.

Here’s why: The Chico, Calif., brewery has installed a 1-megawatt fuel cell project that uses methane produced onsite from a sewage-treatment system serving the brewing process.

Sierra operates restaurants along with making a superb pale ale and other varieties. It has been a pioneering business in looking for ways to reduce the power bills. One good reason, besides saving the planet, is electric bills in California are about double the rates here in the Puget Sound area.

Owner Ken Grossman says Sierra’s sewage-treatment system takes “everything from spilled beer and bits of grain, to the hops and yeast and all the other things that hit the floor.” The progressive company also feeds spent brewery solids to the cattle it raises for its restaurants, and has converted three acres of pasture to photovoltaic solar panels to capture energy from the sun.

Six months into it, the fuel cell has been a success.

“Our base load is somewhat less that what we are producing,” Grossman said in news reports. “So we send the surplus to the [Pacific Gas and Electric] grid, and with the state’s [energy] subsidies, we’ll actually be able to pay this off in less than five years.”

We’ll toast to that, and hope that our local breweries are observing.

—James Grove

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