Editorial Type:
Article Category: Research Article
 | 
Online Publication Date: 29 Sept 2008

Why Do Yoga Research: Who Cares and What Good Is It?

Page Range: 19 – 20
DOI: 10.17761/ijyt.17.1.424676405p408516
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Although IAYT's publications include both original research and summaries of research published in other peer-reviewed journals, the question of why we should be involved in research on Yoga in the first place is a valid one. Full-time research on Yoga or Yoga therapy involves substantial resources both in labor and in costs. For example, a small Yoga therapy clinical trial grant from the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM) of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) requires substantial involvement of trained scientists and Yoga instructors and can cost the taxpayer over a half-million dollars. Yet all of this cost and effort will yield but one small publishable preliminary study. These resources might easily be devoted elsewhere for the public good, perhaps through providing more Yoga classes to underserved populations.

Yoga Journal Releases "Yoga in America" Market Study; Press Release 2/7/05; http://www.yogajournal.com/about_press020705.cfm

Expanding Horizons of Healthcare, Five-year Strategic Plan 2001-2005, National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine, US Department of Health and Human Services, PHS, NIH, 9/25/00, NIH Publication No. 01-5001.

Birdee GS, Legedza A, Phillips RS. Characteristics of yoga users in the United States: results from a national survey. Journal of General Internal Medicine. 2007;22: Supplement 1:35, (Abstract).

Pelletier KR, Astin JA. Integration and reimbursement of complementary and alternative medicine by managed care and insurance providers: 2000 update and cohort analysis. Alternative Therapies in Health and Medicine. 2002;8:38-48.

Khalsa SBS. Yoga as a therapeutic intervention: a bibliometric analysis of published research studies. Indian Journal of Physiology and Pharmacology. 2004;48:269-285.

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