If the government says it's so, then it is, right. And the value of yoga, which you have read about in CURE on numerous occasions, has now been given a big stamp of approval (with the usual government caveats) by the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM), part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). A press release from NCCAM says that a 2007 Centers for Disease Control and Prevention survey reported that 13 million American adults (6 percent) used yoga in the previous year, and the number is on the rise as mind and body therapies are becoming increasingly integrated into the health care system.For those of you interested in how yoga helps cancer patients, we have written a number of stories and always hear from our readers how helpful they find yoga for a number of issues related to cancer. Yoga is generally considered to be safe in healthy people when practiced appropriately under the guidance of a well-trained instructor, which is something we encourage. Inform your instructor about any medical issues you have and ask about the physical demands of yoga. If you are thinking about practicing yoga, be sure to talk to your health care providers. Give them a full picture of what you do to manage your health. And know, as our Editorial Director and Yoga Guru Lena Huang says, yoga can be modified for anyone. You don't have to stand on your head the first day. This latest info from NCCAM about yoga highlights videos that explain the science of yoga and how it works. Check it out.
