Mind-body practices like meditation and yoga have become widely utilized tools for both promoting health and combating diseases such as type 2 diabetes. About 66% of American individuals living with this condition regularly practice mind-body practices to help manage blood sugar.
Research now indicates mind-body practices can effectively help individuals living with type 2 diabetes to lower their blood sugar levels. Researchers believe certain forms of mind-body practice could be as effective as traditionally prescribed medications for this purpose.
Data was analyzed from 28 globally conducted randomized controlled studies analyzing type 2 diabetes individuals who began practicing mind-body practices as well as taking medications to lower their blood sugar levels, and comparing their results against those of individuals only taking medications to control it.
This study explored various mind-body practices such as mindfulness stress reduction, meditation, yoga and qigong and their effect on blood glucose levels; all resulted in significant decreases.
Mind-body practices led to an average reduction of.84% in hemoglobin A1c levels over three months’ average, as measured by yoga. Yoga offered the greatest reduction at roughly 1.1%; researchers noted this as significant given that Metformin reduces hemoglobin A1c by an average of 1.1% among type 2 diabetic patients.
What makes these study results particularly noteworthy is their significance: mind-body practices can produce noticeable effects over and above standard medical care, suggesting they helped individuals achieve reductions in blood glucose levels beyond what medication could offer alone.
Studies indicate that mind-body practices could serve as an adjunct non-pharmacological treatment option for individuals living with type 2 diabetes and as preventive measures against further episodes.
New and effective solutions must be found to effectively manage type 2 diabetes, as only about half of individuals manage to reduce blood sugar levels to the target range of 7% hemoglobin A1c. Furthermore, pre-diabetic American’s have significantly increased to about one third.
Studies conducted across different nations demonstrate how mind-body practices may be beneficial to people living with type 2 diabetes worldwide.
