Yoga effective in easing migraine: AIIMS centre

Yoga has been found to be effective in easing migraine, syncope and helps those with heart diseases, the Centre for Integrative Medicine and Research (CIMR) has found.

Founder professor in-charge of CIMR, Dr Gautam Sharma, on Friday said his team was working with 20 departments of AIIMS.

Speaking with The Tribune, Sharma said, “We have come out with wonderful research in the last eight years that were published in renowned scientific journals. We found that yoga reduced the severity of migraine in patients and syncope decreased in a group who performed yoga.”

Responding to a question on how the scientific community globally is looking to yoga as an intervention in treating patients, Sharma said, “I was invited by the European Society of Cardiology to deliver a lecture on yoga. Top cardiac scientific forums such as the American Heart Rhythm Society and the European Society of Cardiology have extended invitations to present our research on yoga.”

The CIMR has often stressed the need to generate evidence-based medicine to establish yoga as a credible therapeutic modality.

“The economic burden of vaso vagal syncope is also a matter of concern. In an earlier study from the US, up to 7,40,000 emergency visits and 4,60,000 hospital admissions annually were attributed to vaso vagal syncope. There is a significant financial cost involving the diagnostic evaluation and management of syncope. Yoga as add-on therapy in vaso vagal syncope is superior to medical therapy in reducing syncopal and presyncopal events and in improving the quality of life. It may be useful to integrate a cost-effective and safe intervention such as yoga into the management of vaso vagal syncope,” a research by the CIMR revealed.

The CIMR is hosting a two-day international conference on ‘Advances in integrative medicine’ till Saturday. Established in 2016 at AIIMS, the CIMR is hosting the first international conference.