Yoga for Secondary Prevention of Coronary Heart Disease: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis

Objectives: Yoga has been widely practiced and has recently shown benefits in patients with coronary heart disease (CHD), however, evidence is inconsistent.

Methods: We conducted a systematic review and meta-analysis by searching PubMed/Medline, the Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials (CENTRAL), EMBASE and Web of Science from inception to May 31, 2020 for randomised controlled trials (RCTs) comparing yoga with usual care or non-pharmacological interventions in patients with CHD. The primary outcomes were all-cause mortality and health related quality of life (HR-QoL). Secondary outcomes were a composite cardiovascular outcome, exercise capacity and cardiovascular risk factors (blood pressure, lipid profiles and body mass index).

Results: Seven RCTs with a total of 4671 participants were included. Six RCTs compared yoga with usual care and one compared yoga with designed exercise. The mean age of the participants ranged from 51.0-60.7 years and the majority of them were men (85.4 %). Pooled results showed that compared with usual care, yoga had no effect on all-cause mortality (RR, 1.02; 95 % CI, 0.75-1.39), but it significantly improved HR-QoL (SMD, 0.07; 95 % CI, 0.01 - 0.14). A non-significant reduction of the composite cardiovascular outcome was observed (133 vs. 154; RR, 0.63; 95 % CI, 0.15-2.59). Serum level of triglyceride and high density lipoprotein cholesterol, blood pressure and body mass index were also significantly improved. The study comparing yoga with control exercise also reported significantly better effects of yoga on HR-QoL (85.75 vs. 75.24, P < 0.001). No severe adverse events related to yoga were reported.

Conclusions: Yoga might be a promising alternative for patients with CHD as it is associated with improved quality of life, less number of composite cardiovascular events, and improved cardiovascular risk factors.