Obesity has reached epidemic proportions in India in the 21st century, with morbid obesity affecting 5% of the country's population. It is caused by the combination of excessive food energy intake, lack of physical activity, genetic susceptibility, endocrine disorders, medications or psychiatric illness. Obesity affects adversely on health, and reduced life expectancy of the individual. Despite...

BACKGROUND Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a chronic, debilitating anxiety disorder that is highly prevalent among U.S. military veterans. Yoga, defined to include physical postures (asana) and mindfulness and meditation, is being increasingly used as an adjunctive treatment for PTSD and other psychological disorders. No research or administrative data have detailed the use of these ser...

This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant Nos. CCF 1017403 and CCF 0729137, the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada under a PGS award, European Research Council Grant No. 228021-ECCSciEng, IPM (Institute for Research in Fundamental Sciences, Tehran), an NSF SUPERB fellowship, an NDSEG fellowship, and the BSF under grant 200...

Family and friends who provide unpaid care to an individual with a disease or disability (known as informal caregivers) experience numerous threats to their physical health as a result of providing care. In spite of evidence that participation in physical and leisure activities can be health promoting, informal caregivers have reported diminished or completely absent leisure participation. Hath...

Understanding the physical demands placed upon the musculoskeletal system by individual postures may allow experienced instructors and therapists to develop safe and effective yoga programs which reduce undesirable side effects. Thus, we used biomechanical methods to quantify the lower extremity joint angles, joint moments of force, and muscle activities of 21 Hatha yoga postures, commonly used...

Previous research has shown the vast mental and physical health benefits associated with yoga. Yoga practice can be divided into subcategories that include posture-holding exercise (asana), breathing (pranayama, Kriya), and meditation (Sahaj) practice. Studies measuring mental health outcomes have shown decreases in anxiety, and increases in cognitive performance after yoga interventions. Simil...

Depression and anxiety in women sharply rising. Working women have high level of stress than non working women. Increasing amount of work stress at home and work place and its impact on family and home environment can be seen, which affect their emotional, psychological and physical health. The concept of yoga is helpful for reducing anxiety and improving cardiorespiratory parameters has create...

BACKGROUND Different procedures practiced in yoga have stimulatory or inhibitory effects on the basal metabolic rate when studied acutely. In daily life however, these procedures are usually practiced in combination. The purpose of the present study was to investigate the net change in the basal metabolic rate (BMR) of individuals actively engaging in a combination of yoga practices (asana or y...

Yoga has been known to have stimulatory or inhibitory effects on the metabolic parameters and to be uncomplicated therapy for obesity. The purpose of the present study was to test the effect of an 8-week of yoga-asana training on body composition, lipid profile, and insulin resistance (IR) in obese adolescent boys. Twenty volunteers with body mass index (BMI) greater than the 95th percentile we...

Pyrethroid resistance in the lepidopteran insects has caused an influx of new non-pyrethroid based compounds. One such compound is Diamond® .83 EC (novaluron), an insect growth regulator. This is a newly available compound sold as Diamond. The purpose of this experiment was to test the effectiveness of Diamond with respect to a standard of spinosad (Tracer® 4 L) and cyhalothrin (Karate Z® 2.08 ...