from Reuters
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"Our patients really enjoyed the yoga classes, it was very well received by them," she said.

"It really fit in with their own cultural interests."

There is mounting evidence that yoga can improve quality of life in both healthy and chronically ill people, Moadel and her team reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology.

The researchers assigned 128 women to a 12-week yoga intervention or a wait list. Classes were offered three times a week, and the patients were urged to attend at least one class a week.

They were also instructed to do the exercises at home with the help of an audiotape. The Hatha yoga-based exercises had been developed for breast cancer patients by one of the authors of the study, and were done while the patients were either sitting in a chair or lying down.

During the study, patients on the wait list showed greater declines in well being than women in the yoga group. When the researchers omitted patients undergoing chemotherapy from their analysis, they found that the women who did yoga showed improvements in quality of life, greater emotional, social and spiritual well being and less distress.

People often feel fatigued and sick while undergoing chemotherapy, Moadel said, which is probably why yoga didn't appear to be helpful for patients on chemotherapy.

About 69% of the women in the yoga group attended classes, with most of them doing an average of seven during the study. The women who did attend the classes enjoyed them and the more classes they attended, the more benefit they experienced, according to the researchers.

Hospitals and cancer centers are increasingly offering yoga programs to cancer survivors, Moadel said. But she advised breast cancer survivors to talk with their doctor before starting an exercise program and said they should only take classes specifically designed for them.

"I would not recommend a regular yoga class at a studio that is not geared or targeted to someone with cancer, particularly if they are undergoing treatment," Moadel said.