UC Research Shows Yoga as Cancer Treatment Is Not Such a Big Stretch

Research from the University of Cincinnati shows that perhaps the Downward-Facing Dog should have its day in cancer treatment.

Manoj Sharma, a professor of health promotion and education at UC, has studied mind-body interventions such as yoga, tai chi and mindfulness meditation for years. Some of his latest work examines the

efficacy of yoga as an alternative and complementary treatment option for cancer

.

"Because of the diagnosis of cancer and because of the chemotherapy, radiotherapy and any surgery, a person is under a lot of stress," Sharma says. "Yoga relieves the stress. As a consequence, the anxiety gets decreased, the depression gets decreased and those types of effects start happening."

Sharma will present his team’s research "

Yoga as an Alternative and Complementary Treatment for Cancer

" at the American Public Health Association's (APHA) 141st Annual Meeting and Exposition. This year's event, titled "

Think Global, Act Local: Best Practices Around the World

," will be held Nov. 2-6 in Boston. The meeting typically draws more than 13,000 health professionals each year. The APHA supports efforts to assure community-based health promotion and disease prevention activities and preventive health services are universally accessible in the United States.    

Sharma's research explains that there are psychosocial factors in the cause and development of diseases such as cancer, and the psychological stress cancer sufferers endure can impede their recovery. Sharma and his research team used the systematic qualitative review method to analyze previous interventions described in the Cumulative Index to Nursing & Allied Health, MEDLINE and Alt HealthWatch research databases.

Thirteen studies met Sharma's inclusion criteria for review, and 11 of those reported significant changes in the psychological and/or physical functioning of their subjects. For Sharma, that's solid evidence

there needs to be further study of yoga as an alternative and complementary cancer treatment

. He has developed his own intervention based on kundalini yoga and incorporating behavioral theory. Sharma plans to involve additional collaborators in further testing.

"Clinicians can very easily have their cancer patients learn some method of yoga as a complementary treatment along with chemotherapy and radiotherapy," Sharma says. "Patients can practice yoga and reduce the adverse side effects from cancer and improve their coping."

The National Institutes of Health's

National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine

reports that

nearly 40 percent of Americans use health care approaches developed outside of mainstream Western, or conventional, medicine

for specific conditions or overall well-being. Yet Sharma says few universities are conducting research on complementary and alternative medicine, and UC stands out for being among them. Sharma's work also aligns with the university's

UC2019 Academic Master Plan

goal of transforming our world through research.    

Additional contributors to the research were Taj Haider of the The Legal Aid Society and Adam Knowlden of the University of Alabama.

At the APHA meeting,

Sharma will be given the Student Assembly Public Health Mentoring Award

. The award is given annually to senior public health practitioners or academics who take an active role in mentoring students and young professionals through regular contact, professional development, research support or joint publications. Sharma says he was humbled to be nominated for the award by his students.

Sharma of UC’s

College of Education, Criminal Justice, and Human Services

is also cited as a co-author on nine other research presentations that will be given at the APHA meeting:

• "Comparing the utility of the theory of planned behavior between boys and girls for predicting snack food consumption: Implications for practice"
• "Examining the association between emotional intelligence and physical activity among college students"
• "Exploring the relationship between emotional intelligence and sugar sweetened beverage consumption among a college population"
• "Physical activity measurement in health promotion and education research"
• "Using the social cognitive theory to predict the initiation and duration of breastfeeding among African-American women"  
• "Improving planning of web-based community health interventions through human interaction and sense of community"  
• "Enhancing the effectiveness of school-based drug abuse prevention programs in high school students"  
• "Nutritional attitudes of homosexual people living with human immunodeficiency virus in Chongqing, Southwest China: A cross-sectional study"  
• "Impact evaluation of the enabling mothers to prevent pediatric obesity through web-based education and reciprocal determinism (EMPOWER) intervention"

Additional UC research to be presented at the APHA meeting includes:

• "Impact Evaluation of the Enabling Mothers to Prevent Pediatric Obesity Through Web-Based Education and Reciprocal Determinism (EMPOWER) Intervention" by Adam Knowlden, a 2013 graduate of CECH's Health Promotion and Education doctoral program
• "Children and Siblings Use of Play to Work Through Medical Trauma" by Laura Nabors, an associate professor of human services at UC