Poorly managed stress plays a key role in the development of lifestyle diseases, including major depression, heart disease, diabetes and hypertension. Lifestyle diseases are seeing a steep rising curve in both urban and rural India.
Do it right: Even simple postures are beneficial as long as they are practised correctly and regularly.
India�s largest clinic-based survey, Screening India�s Twin Epidemic (SITE) , launched by Sanofi-Aventis Group and led by Shashank Joshi, consultant endocrinologist, Lilavati Hospital, Mumbai, came out with its findings in Mumbai on 7 November. The study found that over 60% of the adult population surveyed across India either had diabetes (35%) or hypertension (46%) or both (21%). The survey covered 16,000 people in eight states and areas�Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, New Delhi-National Capital Region, West Bengal, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Gujarat, and Madhya Pradesh. According to Prasanna Paranjape, a vedic physician at the Sanjeevan Ayurved centre in Pune, yoga can be used easily to manage stress and improve quality of life.
The question is, can yoga help prevent lifestyle diseases and reduce the symptoms of these diseases? Read More
Sujata Kelkar Shetty, PhD, writes on public health issues and is a research scientist trained at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, US.