Various US universities-medical/clinical centers-hospitals are undertaking research projects exploring yoga’s possible help in treatment of various illnesses, according to a database published on US National Institutes of Health (NIH) website.
Funded/administered by National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health (NCCIH), National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, National Institute on Drug Abuse, National Cancer Institute, etc.-all part of U.S. Department of Health and Human Services; and U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs; cost for some of these projects is listed at over half-a-million dollars each.
Project titles listed include looking into yoga’s help in the treatment/relief/intervention/management/care of PTSD, sleep disturbance, chronic pain, symptom management for breast cancer, arthritis, antenatal depression, urinary incontinence, smoking cessation, substance abuse, type 2 diabetes, insomnia, depression, pain perception and pain control, anxiety disorder, etc.
These projects are being undertaken at Indianapolis Veterans Affairs (VA) Medical Center, University of California-San Francisco, University of Minnesota, Duke University, NIH Clinical Center in Maryland, Providence Butler Hospital, Boston Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Rhode Island Miriam Hospital, Alexandria University of Pennsylvania, University of Rochester, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston University, etc.; as per as the website.
NIH website also points out that “NCCIH is currently supporting research on how practicing yoga may affect”: HIV, immune function, menopausal symptoms, multiple sclerosis, diabetes risk, etc.
Hindu statesman Rajan Zed, in a statement in Nevada today, welcoming these state funded/administered research projects looking into possible usage of yoga in various health/medical related issues, called it “a step in the positive direction”. Zed urged all major world universities/medical-centers/hospitals to explore various benefits yoga offered.
Yoga, referred as “a living fossil”, was a mental and physical discipline, for everybody to share and benefit from, whose traces went back to around 2,000 BCE to Indus Valley civilization, Zed, who is President of Universal Society of Hinduism, noted.
Rajan Zed further said that yoga, although introduced and nourished by Hinduism, was a world heritage and liberation powerhouse to be utilized by all. According to Patanjali who codified it in Yoga Sutra, yoga was a methodical effort to attain perfection, through the control of the different elements of human nature, physical and psychical.
According to NIH; yoga may help reduce low-back pain and improve function, relieve anxiety and depression and insomnia, improve quality of life, reduce stress, lower heart rate and blood pressure, improve strength and flexibility. According to a “2016 Yoga in America Study”, about 37 million Americans (which included many celebrities) now practice yoga; and yoga is strongly correlated with having a positive self image. Yoga was the repository of something basic in the human soul and psyche, Zed added.