What’s This Research About?
As yoga rises in popularity, many are turning to yoga as a form of complementary
therapy, leading to a rise in randomized controlled trials (RCTs) published every year.
Such yoga studies yield successful outcomes in all types of conditions including pain,
PTSD, symptoms associated with cancer, depression, metabolic disease, osteoporosis,
and more. The vigor and methodology of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM)
research is often challenged and it has been shown in the past that CAM research is
particularly prone to bias. The lead author has previously published an article revealing
that yoga research originating and published in India is 25 times more likely to show
positive outcomes than research conducted outside of India.
This paper recognizes that country of publication may therefore be a risk factor
for bias and attempts to discover which other factors may play a role and if those
factors affect the outcomes of yoga studies in particular.
TITLE: Associated factors and consequences of risk of bias in randomized controlled trials of yoga: A systematic review.
PUBLICATION: PLOS ONE
DATE: 2015
AUTHORS : Cramer, H., Langhorst, J., Dobos, G., Lauche,R.
Complementary therapies: A category of interventions to be distinguished from conventional therapies or medicines. Often called alternative or integrative health or abbreviated as CAM (complementary and alternative medicines).
Randomized control trial (RCT): A study where the subjects are selected by chance (randomly) to participate in an intervention and compared to one or more groups of subjects, one of which participated in no intervention at all (control group).
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