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Baba Ramdev puts yoga to PGI test

None | ByPankaj A Jaiswal, Lucknow
Feb 27, 2006 01:09 AM IST

TEST YOGA and then trust it. That seems to be the message of yoga guru Swami Ramdev who has got the Sanjay Gandhi Post Graduate Institute of Medical Sciences (SGPGIMS), Lucknow, to subject the ancient science to a searching examination. For the first time, a proper scientific ?before and after? study is being conducted on nearly 300 ?yoga subjects? from all over the country at a ?Yoga Vigyan Shivir?.

TEST YOGA and then trust it.

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That seems to be the message of yoga guru Swami Ramdev who has got the Sanjay Gandhi Post Graduate Institute of Medical Sciences (SGPGIMS), Lucknow, to subject the ancient science to a searching examination.

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For the first time, a proper scientific ‘before and after’ study is being conducted on nearly 300 ‘yoga subjects’ from all over the country at a ‘Yoga Vigyan Shivir’.
Ramdev’s Patanjali Yogpeeth is paying the SGPGIMS for the service.

On the first day on Sunday, the camp at Sahara Shaher Stadium, presented a unique picture. Several rooms in a building at the stadium were crowded. People held sealed disposable syringes in their hands.

‘Venflow’ was poked into their veins so that blood samples could be taken in several rounds, without perforating the skin every time. Hundreds of fresh test tubes were filled with blood, as the SGPGIMS staff took samples which then went into cold-chain maintenance boxes. Blood pressure and sugar levels were also measured. The participants were identified by numbers, and not names, to maintain the effectiveness of the study.

Ramdev said, “I want people from all over the world to know that it’s a pure science.”

The SGPGIMS team was led by head of the Department of Endocrinology Dr M Godbole and head of the Department of Pathology Dr RK Gupta.
The team has two more senior doctors, eight resident doctors and twelve technicians of the institute.

While the SGPGIMS is doing bio-chemical studies on the effect of pranayama-yoga, psychometric tests on participants are being conducted by the Swami Vivekananda Yoga Anusandhan Sansthan (SVYAS), Bangalore. The latter will study psychological changes in the participants.

There was no yoga or pranayam activity this morning. Swami Ramdev conducted only a satsang before all were ushered in for medical examinations. He himself went away in a Merc.

Dr RK Gupta said: “We know that pranayama and yoga are age-old forms of knowledge. In olden days, people made observations on yoga’s effectiveness. Now, also there are many observations that it is effective. But, there has not been a proper evaluation. Earlier, we collected samples and conducted tests in Hardwar, but we did not trust either the sampling, or the results of tests performed in a makeshift lab. Now, we are conducting tests in a research lab and hospital set- up. The results will be accurate.”

About Ramdev’s repeated claim that health was all about good hormones and bad hormones, doctors said, “It’s true that it’s all about hormones.
But it has to be verified how and to what extent yoga can balance them.”
Tests will measure hormonal levels before and after yoga. In particular, tests will be done on serum cortisol, ACTH, and prolactin (bad hormones) and Beta endorphin(a good hormone). Most diseases occur due to an increase in bad hormones.

Methodology of study
The SGPGIMS has divided participants in two groups. One consists of people between the ages of 20 and 50 years with no known health problems and the other has 50-plus people with known health problems. Liver profile, kidney profile, diabetes profile and lipid profile will be done on participants of both the groups, both before and after the yoga camp, which begins on Monday. Each group will be further divided in two. One sub-group will do yoga-pranayam as well as satsang, while the other will attend only the satsang.

The tests that were done on Sunday will now be repeated on March 7. Some results will be made public on March 8. Samples will go through more intricate tests in the next three months.


 

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