Effects of recumbent isometric yoga on the orthostatic cardiovascular response of patients with [ME/CFS] 2025 Oka et al

[Andy]

Abstract​

Background​

Our previous studies demonstrated that the regular practice of recumbent isometric yoga reduced the fatigue of patients with myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS). Some patients with ME/CFS have postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome (POTS); however, the effects of recumbent isometric yoga on orthostatic cardiovascular responses and whether recumbent isometric yoga improves POTS remain unknown. This pilot study was done to investigate the effect of recumbent isometric yoga on the orthostatic cardiovascular response of patients with ME/CFS.

Main body​

Ten adult female patients with ME/CFS performed recumbent isometric yoga for 12 weeks. Changes in their systolic blood pressure (SBP), diastolic blood pressure (DBP), and the pulse rate (PR) during an active standing test were compared before and after the 12-week regimen. Among the 10 patients, 8 manifested a normal orthostatic response and 2 manifested POTS before the yoga intervention. Patients who manifested a normal orthostatic response before yoga also manifested the normal orthostatic pattern after the yoga intervention. In contrast, the two patients who manifested POTS before the regimen showed a normal orthostatic response after completing the yoga intervention.

Conclusions​

This study found that the patients who manifested POTS and performed recumbent isometric yoga for 12 weeks had a reduced increase in PR after standing up. This pilot study suggests that recumbent isometric yoga would be useful as an adjunctive nonpharmacological intervention for improving POTS in patients with ME/CFS. This finding should be confirmed in a larger number of cases.

Open access

 

[Andy]

"Subjects​

Ten adult female patients with ME/CFS (aged 36.5 ± 12.2 years) who had been treated in the department of psychosomatic medicine and did not obtain complete recovery participated in the study. The patients were diagnosed with ME/CFS based on the following diagnostic criteria: the 1994 Fukuda case definition of CFS [1], the 2003 Canadian clinical case definition of ME/CFS [2], the 2011 International Consensus Criteria for ME [9], the 2015 case definition of systemic exertion intolerance disease (SEID) [10], and the 2017 clinical case definition of ME/CFS in Japan [11]."

Ref 11 is to "Ban N, Matsumoto Y, Kuratsune H. New clinical case definition of myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome in Japan (2017). J Fatigue Science. 2017;12(2):1–7. Google Scholar"

The link given to Google Scholar doesn't return any article, and Googling the information given in the reference doesn't find a match so I don't know what criteria the authors intended to reference.

 

[Utsikt]

Among the 10 patients, 8 manifested a normal orthostatic response and 2 manifested POTS before the yoga intervention.

This study found that the patients who manifested POTS and performed recumbent isometric yoga for 12 weeks had a reduced increase in PR after standing up.

This sounds like data torture. They found a change in one measurement in 2 out of 10 patients.

Even if it isn’t data torture, it’s essentially two anecdotes.