Trending mindfulness meditation and yoga are as effective at lowering blood sugar levels as diabetes medication, research suggests.
Researchers from the University of Southern California reviewed data from dozens of randomized controlled trials conducted around the world over the past 30 years.
The studies included people with type 2 diabetes who also used mind and body wellness techniques along with their medications.
These ranged from meditation, yoga and breathing techniques to qigong, a slow martial art similar to tai chi.
The researchers then compared this group’s health outcomes to those of people who relied solely on medication to lower their blood sugar for three months.
They found that meditative practices increased scores by 0.8 percent overall — but yoga was even more effective at 1 percent.
This compares to the most popular diabetes drug, metformin, which is taken by around 14 million Americans and 850,000 Brits.
Trending mindfulness meditation and yoga are as effective at lowering blood sugar levels as diabetes medication, research suggests (file image)
dr Fatimata Sanogo of USC’s Department of Population and Public Health Sciences and lead author of the study said, “The most surprising finding was the magnitude of the benefit these practices provide.”
“We anticipated a benefit, but never expected it to be this big,” she added.
Type 2 diabetes is the most common form of the disease, which is characterized by the body’s inability to properly use insulin, a hormone produced by the pancreas.
What is meditation?
Think of it as fitness for your mind.
Meditation calms the body, lowering blood pressure and stress levels, and improving overall mood.
The goal of engaging in mind-body activities is to use your thoughts to positively affect your body’s physical responses to the outside world.
The practices are part of an overarching wellness trend that has been touted by celebrities and tech giants for years.
These activities include…
mindfulness
The process of focusing the breath and concentrating on a specific thought, object, or activity to promote a stable emotional state.
Mindfulness is the ability to be fully present and aware of your surroundings.
A common technique is to silently focus on each of the senses.
Pilates and yoga
They involve breathwork and coordinated, focused movement.
Both of these low-impact exercises improve strength, flexibility, and posture.
In yoga, you take poses and hold them or fly into another position.
Pilates sees people take positions and then work their core muscles by moving their arms or legs.
Qi Gong, Tai Chi
Martial arts that promote both physical fitness and mental discipline.
Qigong and Tai Chi are traditional self-healing exercises that originated in ancient China.
They feature coordinated movements that focus on posture, deep breathing, and mental focus.
Qigong can involve movement or simply meditation while seated or standing.
Tai Chi, on the other hand, involves complex and choreographed movements that follow your own breath.
While some people can control their blood sugar through diet and exercise, around 37 million Americans rely on insulin treatments.
Mindfulness activities like yoga and meditation are known to help control their blood sugar levels — 66 percent of Americans with type 2 diabetes do this — but scientists haven’t been able to quantify the benefits until recently.
A team of researchers from the University of Southern California’s Keck School of Medicine reported that mind-body activity reduced hemoglobin A1c, a measure of average blood sugar levels over the past 3 months, by an average of 0.84 percent.
Their analysis was published in the Journal of Integrative and Complementary Medicine.
The scientists analyzed 28 published clinical studies that tested different practices, including yoga, qigong, meditation and mindfulness-based stress reduction.
Qigong, a coordinated posture, movement and meditation practice with roots in ancient China, has been linked to a 0.66 percent drop in A1c.
Mindfulness-based stress reduction practices, including meditation, contributed to a 0.48 percent decrease.
Yoga was the best-studied mind-body practice and had the greatest benefits for type 2 diabetics, lowering hemoglobin A1c by about 1 percent.
This reduction, the authors note, is comparable to the 1 percent reduction in A1c caused by the common diabetes drug metformin.
People who did yoga several times a week saw the steepest decrease in their A1c.
The analysis suggests that mindfulness activities combined with prescription medications can double the effectiveness of the medications.
dr Richard Watanabe, professor of population and public health sciences and physiology and neuroscience at the Keck School of Medicine, said, ‘What’s important about this study is that the effect is very powerful and is exceeding standard of care.’
Type 2 diabetes can be prevented by adopting a healthy lifestyle, e.g. B. through a good diet, exercise, giving up smoking and losing excess weight.
About 96 million Americans are prediabetic, meaning their blood sugar levels are higher than normal but not high enough to be diagnosed as type 2 diabetes.
People with prediabetes are susceptible to type 2 diabetes, as well as heart disease and stroke.
Participating in physical activity could be helpful for those who are at high risk of developing diabetes.
dr Sanogo said, “This could be an important tool for many people because type 2 diabetes is a major chronic health problem and we can’t control it well enough.”
“Although this study doesn’t treat it as a preventive measure, it does suggest that it may help people with prediabetics reduce their risk of future type 2 diabetes.”