Yoga is linked to lowered heart disease risks in a review of 37 studies involving almost 3,000 people in the Netherlands, according to work published online Monday by the European Journal of Preventive Cardiology.
Researchers also found that yoga did no better or worse on measures of heart risk as more strenuous exercise such as brisk walking and jogging,
according to the BBC News.
Currently yoga doesn't count towards physical activity requirements of 150 minutes of moderate intensity aerobic activity per week,
according to the American Heart Association, which describes traditional yoga as slowly stretching the body into a variety of poses while focusing on breathing and meditation.
"This finding is significant as individuals who cannot or prefer not to perform traditional aerobic exercise might still achieve similar benefits in (cardiovascular) risk reduction," researchers noted in their journal study.
Fox News reported that previous research showed yoga to be effective in reducing the risk of heart attacks and strokes. The new study found those who participate in yoga have profound risk factor improvements over people who did not exercise.
"There are several types of yoga out there; we limited our study to focus on types that included movement and could be considered more rigorous, which could partially explain the findings," Paula Chu, a doctoral student in health policy at Harvard University, told FoxNews.com.
Myriam Hunink of at the Erasmus University Medical Center in Rotterdam said the study shows that yoga could be just as important for those trying to minimize heart disease as other exercises, noted BBC News.
"These results indicate that yoga is potentially very useful and in my view worth pursuing as a risk improvement practice," Hunink said.
Maureen Talbot of the British Heart Foundation told the BBC News that while a more substantial study is needed, there are some reasons why yoga could have this impact on reducing heart disease risk.
"The benefits could be due to working the muscles and breathing, which can bring more oxygen into the body, leading to lower blood pressure," Talbot said to the BBC News. "A larger study is recommended though to assess the effects of yoga more fully."
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