Kundalini Yoga May Support Cognition and Memory in Women at Risk of Alzheimer's

Yoga sessions may support cognition and memory in older women at risk of Alzheimer's disease, potentially reducing some contributing factors and delaying the appearance of symptoms.

Kundalini yoga and Alzheimer's risk

Researchers at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) recruited 79 women aged over 50 who may have carried a gene variant associated with an increased risk of developing Alzheimer's. The gene is also linked to raised blood pressure and heart rate, as well as abnormal blood vessels in the brain.

The women reported experiencing cognitive decline themselves. They were either taking medication for high cholesterol or high blood pressure, had diabetes, or had recently had a heart attack.

For 12 weeks, the participants were split into two groups: one completed a programme of Kundalini yoga, while the other undertook conventional memory-training exercises. Follow-up assessments revealed a "significant, large effect size" improvement in cognition among the yoga group compared with those doing the memory exercises.

"These results suggest clinical and biological benefits to Kundalini yoga for subjective cognitive decline, linking changes in cognition to the anti-inflammatory effects of yoga," write the researchers in their published paper.

Effects on cognition, brain health and inflammation

The study's limitations mean it is far too early to claim that yoga can lower the likelihood of developing Alzheimer's. However, among this small group of volunteers, it seemed to ease some early issues associated with the disease.

Among participants in the yoga group, researchers observed rebuilt neural pathways, less loss of brain matter, and reversals in certain biomarkers - biological indicators - connected with ageing and inflammation. All of these are associated with Alzheimer's.

Kundalini yoga places greater emphasis on breathing and meditation than on adopting physical postures. Earlier research has found it can help counter cognitive decline and improve mood.

"That is what yoga is good for – to reduce stress, to improve brain health, subjective memory performance and reduce inflammation and improve neuroplasticity," says psychiatrist Helen Lavretsky, from UCLA.

Memory training can complement yoga

One difficulty in preventing and curing Alzheimer's is that its exact causes remain uncertain. Encouragingly, scientists are steadily getting closer to answers and have identified several conditions, including depression, that are strongly associated with the disease.

Working out how Alzheimer's risk can be reduced may provide further clues about what triggers it, and this latest study suggests yoga's beneficial effects merit further investigation.

When it comes to choosing yoga or memory exercises to remain mentally sharp in later life, there may be no reason to pick only one. The researchers point out that the memory-training exercises improved recall, as they were designed to do.

"Yoga has this anti-inflammatory, stress-reducing, anti-aging neuroplastic brain effect which would be complementary to memory training," says Lavretsky.

"Ideally, people should do both because they do train different parts of the brain and have different overall health effects."

The research was published in Translational Psychiatry.