Physical and mental effects of 12 weeks of hot yoga: A controlled open-label study.

抄録

The effects of a 60-minute hot yoga program twice a week for 12 weeks in healthy women who were aware of their lack of exercise were examined and compared with a control group. The analysis subjects were divided into two groups: a control group (19 subjects, age 43.6 ± 10.3 years, BMI 26.4 ± 0.8) and a hot yoga group (34 subjects, age 44.1 ± 9.5 years, BMI 25.7 ± 0.4), and the hot yoga practitioners were further divided into a wood stone floor group and a regular floor group (17 subjects each). Measurements after 12 weeks showed improvement in skin condition (water content, wrinkles, and texture), improvement in mental stress according to the SF-8 questionnaire, mild improvement in weight, body shape, and flexibility, decrease in HbA1c, and increase in expression of sirtuin gene SIRT6. No adverse events were noted. A comparison of regular and woodstone floors showed a greater improvement in SF-8 body score when using woodstone floors, and blood tests showed an avoidable decrease in RBC and Hb, a significant increase in total protein, and a mild increase in CPK, which was considered an advantage of the woodstone floors. In the present study, a 12-week hot yoga program conducted with potentially inactive women showed a wide variety of effects and increased SIRT6 expression as a factor involved in the mechanism of action. The results suggest that hot yoga, a combination of thermotherapy and yoga, is a safe health promotion method that increases sirtuin activity and enhances the efficiency of health promotion effects both mentally and physically.