Does yoga help with chronic back pain?  Yes it does, but so does stretching.  Either is better than handing people a book, according to the largest U.S. randomized controlled trial of yoga to date. 

In the trial, 228 adults in six cities in western Washington state were randomly assigned to 12 weekly 75-minute classes of either yoga or stretching exercises or a comprehensive self-care book called "The Back Pain Helpbook". Nine in 10 of them were primary-care patients at Group Health Cooperative and participants in the trial typically had moderate, but not severe, back pain and relatively good mental health. Most had been at least somewhat active before the trial started. 




Both the yoga and stretching classes emphasized the torso and legs:



"We expected back pain to ease more with yoga than with stretching, so our findings surprised us," Sherman said. "The most straightforward interpretation of our findings would be that yoga's benefits on back function and symptoms were largely physical, due to the stretching and strengthening of muscles."


"Our results suggest that both yoga and stretching can be good, safe options for people who are willing to try physical activity to relieve their moderate low back pain," Sherman concluded. "But it's important for the classes to be therapeutically oriented, geared for beginners, and taught by instructors who can modify postures for participants' individual physical limitations."

Published in the Archives of Internal Medicine
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