Yoga found to reduce middle-age weight gain

• Many people begin to gain weight when they hit their 40s, often adding a pound per year as their metabolism slows.
• But Kristal and his colleagues found that practicing yoga regularly diminished the climb.
• The researchers surveyed 15,500 healthy middle-aged men and women about their physical activity and weight history from the ages of 45 to 55.
• They found that regular yoga practice could reduce weight gain by three pounds.
• People of normal weight gained an average of 12.6 pounds during that 10-year period, while people who practiced yoga at least 30 minutes a week for four or more years gained only 9.5 pounds.
• Yoga practitioners who were overweight lost an average of five pounds during those 10 years, while people who did not practice yoga and were overweight gained 13.5 pounds.
• "I really thought that once I controlled for the fact that people who did yoga did more physical activity and ate a better diet, the effect would disappear, but it didn't," says Kristal.
• "The study promotes the idea that behavioral therapies, including yoga, could help weight loss," says Roger Fielding, an exercise physiologist at the USDA Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging at Tufts University in Boston.
• He cautions that the current study has some limitations, such as relying on people to remember their weight from several years ago, and says more rigorous tests are needed before recommending yoga for weight control.
• The practice may help people control their weight by reducing stress, rather than by increasing the number of calories they burn.
• Kristal says yoga may be especially effective for people who eat as a reaction to stress.
• Denise Benitez, a yoga teacher in Seattle who collaborated on the study, says people interested in beginning a yoga practice should start with the gentler forms of yoga and try a few different classes to find the one they are most comfortable with.