Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• Mullapudi, Thrinath
• Debnath, Monojit
• Govindaraj, Ramajayam
• Raj, Praveen
• Banerjee, Moinak
• Varambally, Shivarama

Titel

Effects of a six-month yoga intervention on the immune-inflammatory pathway in antipsychotic-stabilized schizophrenia patients: A randomized controlled trial

Ist Teil von

• Asian journal of psychiatry, 2023-08, Vol.86, p.103636-103636, Article 103636

Ort / Verlag

Netherlands: Elsevier B.V

Erscheinungsjahr

2023

Quelle

MEDLINE

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• Schizophrenia is a complex neuropsychiatric disorder for which several etiopathological theories have been proposed, one of the prominent ones being immune dysfunction. Recent studies on yoga as an add-on therapy have shown improvement in negative symptoms, cognition, and quality of life in schizophrenia patients. However, the biological mechanism/s of action of yoga in schizophrenia are not clear. The current study was aimed at exploring the effects of long-term (6 months) add-on yoga therapy on the immune inflammatory pathway in schizophrenia patients. Sixty schizophrenia patients were randomized to add-on yoga therapy (YT=30) and treatment-as-usual (TAU=30) groups of which 21 patients in YT and 20 in TAU group completed the study. Blood samples and clinical assessments were obtained at baseline and at the end of 6 months. The plasma levels of nine cytokines (IL-2, IL-4, IL-5, IL-10, IL-12(p70), IL-13, GM-CSF, IFN-γ, and TNF-α) were quantified using multiplex suspension array. The clinical assessments included SAPS, SANS, BPRS, PSS, CGI, SOFS and WHOQUOL-BREF. Patients in the yoga group showed significant reductions in plasma TNF-α (Z = 2.99, p = 0.003) and IL-5 levels (Z = 2.20, p = 0.03) and greater clinical improvements in SAPS, SANS, PSS, and SOFS scores as compared to TAU group. Further, plasma TNF-α levels exhibited a positive correlation with negative symptoms (rs =0.45, p = 0.02) and socio-occupational functioning (rs =0.61, p = 0.002) in the YT group. The findings of the study suggest that improvements in schizophrenia psychopathology with yoga interventions are associated with immuno-modulatory effects. •Six months of add-on yoga therapy led to reduction in plasma TNF-α x and IL-5 levels in patients with schizophrenia.•The reduction in TNF-α levels correlated with improvements in negative symptoms as well as socio-occupational functioning•Reduction in pro-inflammatory cytokines provides preliminary evidence for immuno-modulatory effects of yoga in schizophrenia.