It is now well established: yoga and meditation, if practised correctly and consistently, have beneficial effects not only on a person’s psychological balance, but also on their physical health.
A very interesting study has recently been published by the Keck School of Medicine of the University of Southern California, which establishes that yoga and meditation practices can effectively help keep blood sugar levels under control in people with type 2 diabetes.
In the USA, in fact, patients were already aware of the benefits of this type of activity for controlling diabetes: even today, around 66% of Americans with type 2 diabetes say they practise yoga and/or meditation to lower their blood sugar levels.
Now scientific confirmation has arrived.
‘The most surprising finding was the size of the benefit provided by these practices,’ said Fatimata Sanogo, a doctoral student at USC. ‘We expected the benefit to be real, but we did not expect it to be so evident.’
The team that conducted the study collected data from 28 randomised trials held around the world between 1993 and 2022, in which patients with type 2 diabetes added mind-body practices to their medication. From meditation to qigong to yoga, these practices produced a significant decrease in diabetics’ blood sugar, which the researchers were able to quantify.
