Yoga Good For Prostate Cancer Patients, Study Says

Yoga is not just just for relaxing and removing stress as a new study suggested that it can also help those men who have prostate cancer.

A study, conducted by researchers led by Dr. Neha Vapiwala of the Department of Radiation Oncology at the University of Pennsylvania's Perelman School of Medicine, found that yoga can help maintain quality of life and relieve the stress and side effects of treatment of men who are undergoing therapy for prostate cancer, Medical News Today (MNT) reported.

In order to reach this conclusion, Dr. Vapiwala and co-researchers recruited 68 prostate cancer patients who are undergoing six to nine weeks of radiation therapy. Out of those recruited, 45 agreed to undergo 75 minutes of Eischens Yoga twice every week in the duration of their treatment.

The researchers, nonetheless, noted that 18 participants did not finish the yoga sessions due to conflict with their therapies, reducing the participants to 27.

Eischens Yoga, as described by The Yoga Centre, is a discipline that addresses "imbalances and weakness" which roots from injuries or habits. Eischens yoga thereby helps by improving alignments as well as muscle stimulation or relaxation.

After finishing the yoga sessions, the participants were tasked to answer a questionnaire from which the researchers found that the yoga sessions helped the patients maintain their quality of life, improve "fatigue severity," and stabilize prevalence of "erectile dysfunction" and "urinary incontinence."

"Data have consistently shown declines in these important measures among prostate cancer patients undergoing cancer therapy without any structured fitness interventions, so the stable scores seen with our yoga program are really good news," Dr. Vapiwala said.

Dr. Vapiwala also explained that there might be a psychological benefit from participating in group fitness activities that integrates meditation and overall fitness. Moreover, he believes that their study proved that yoga is a "feasible solution" for men being treated for prostate cancer.

"Our participation-rate finding alone is important because it is a caution against making assumptions about patients without proper evidence," Dr. Vapiwala added.

As mentioned in the MNT report, the group is planning to conduct a "randomized control trial for men with prostate cancer" wherein they will be comparing the effects of Yoga to those who participate and to those who do not.

Dr. Vapiwala and colleagues presented their research during the 12^th International Conference of the Society of Integrative Oncology held at Boston, MA.

According to the American Cancer Society, prostate cancer is the most common cancer for men after skin cancer. The organization estimates that for 2015, there are about 220,800 new cases of prostate cancer along with 27,540 deaths due to it.