Iyengar Yoga Therapy for Chronic Low Back Pain Study

Evaluation of the Effectiveness and Efficacy of Iyengar Yoga Therapy on Chronic Low Back Pain: Williams, Kimberly PhD, et al. Spine. 34(19):2066-2076, September 1, 2009.
"http://journals.lww.com/spinejournal/Abstract/2009/09010/Evaluation_of_the_Effectiveness_and_Efficacy_of.18.aspx"

A landmark Iyengar Yoga therapy study to help relieve chronic lower back pain was published at the beginning of September. The twice-weekly yoga class significantly relieved pain and depression.

The study, published in last month's issue of the journal Spine, was a three-year, $400,000 research project funded by National Institutes of Health. Researchers assigned 90 people with chronic low back pain to a yoga group or a control group that received standard medical care, such as pain medication.

Those in the yoga group participated in 24 weeks of biweekly Iyengar yoga classes designed for people with chronic lower-back pain. Six months after the study ended, those in the Iyengar yoga group reported significantly more improvements in pain and functionality compared with subjects in the other group. In addition, depression was much lower in the yoga subjects. The use of pain medication was reduced, but that reduction was similar in both groups.

"The yoga group had less pain, less functional disability and less depression compared with the control group," Kimberly Williams, the lead investigator, and an Iyengar yoga teacher from West Virginia University, said in a news release. "Proponents of yoga have long described its benefits in reducing back pain. But not everyone was convinced. This is a much bigger, much more rigorous evaluation than had been done before."

Bruce’s comments:
Back pain is ubiquitous and may encompass an extremely wide range of conditions — from minor discomfort to serious pathologies. The study abstract states that there were specific “exclusions,” meaning that the study was limited in some way to control the variables. Although I have only seen the abstract and not the text of the study, I presume that serious disk herniations, complications due to lumbar spinal fusions, and serious spondylolystheses, etc. have been excluded.

As news of this study has begun to spread — an article about it was published in the national magazine Parade on October 11 — we have begun to get calls from those seeking relief from some of the more serious diseases that cause lower back pain. While we seldom turn anyone away, some callers seem to think there is a quick and easy solution to long-standing problems. They ask, albeit innocently, for a list of exercises that can be done at home, completely disregarding that the study spanned six months of intensive training. In my twenty-five years of teaching, I have found it takes at least that long to make a significant change, although short term relief can be achieved much more quickly.

I founded Yoga St. Louis with the intention of proving that anyone, if only willing to dedicate the time and energy necessary to develop skill, could learn the art of yoga. I took my cue from the Bhagavad Gita, which proclaims, “Yoga is skill in action.” [Bhagavad Gita II.50] At a simple level this means that through intelligent action, one may achieve the intended results.

Patanjali says something similar: “The pain which is yet to come can, and is to be, avoided [Patanjali Yoga Sutra II.16].” Sage Vyasa explains that present pain cannot be avoided because it already exists, even though it can be reduced to some extent through yogic practice and discriminative knowledge. But future pain can be avoided through current yogic discipline.