Cancer patients who practise YOCAS yoga can benefit from reduced levels of inflammation – helping their road to recovery and even preventing cancer from returning.

The finding comes from research led by the University of Rochester Medical Centre in the US, published at the recent annual meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO).

Eligible participants were cancer survivors with insomnia. For the study, more than 500 people – with an average age of 56 – took part in a randomised control trial. All participants had received cancer treatment between two months and five years earlier.

They were randomised to do either the Yoga for Cancer Survivors programme (YOCAS), which includes gentle Hatha and restorative yoga, or a placebo programme devised by ASCO, and part of the Cancer Treatment and Survivorship Care Plans initiative and involving recommendation-based health education.

Both groups took part in two 75-minute sessions each week for a month.

Each group was monitored using a series of blood tests throughout the four-week period and checked for levels of inflammation.

Inflammation, both acute and chronic, is universally associated with primary and secondary cancer development and progression, as well as a myriad of toxicities that negatively affect cancer treatment adherence and survival.

Those who took up the YOCAS yoga had “significantly lower levels of pro-inflammatory markers,” when compared with the group attending education classes.

In the report published at the ASCO meeting, the researchers said: “Our data suggest that YOCAS yoga significantly reduces inflammation among cancer survivors.

"Clinicians should consider prescribing it for survivors experiencing inflammation, which may lead to a high chronic toxicity burden and increased risk of progression, recurrence and second cancers.”

A previous study, Effect of YOCAS yoga on sleep, fatigue, and quality of life, carried out in 2010, had found YOCAS yoga significantly improves sleep quality and quality of life, while also reducing fatigue and sleep medication use among survivors.

It's likely that the improvements in the health of the cancer survivors as a result of the recent YOCAS interventions which examined inflammation can in part be attributed to having helped their insomnia, with all the accompanying health benefits this delivers.

The research sponsor for the study was the US National Institute of Health.

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