Yoga Helps Prevent Urine Incontinence: Study

Doing yoga helps prevent accidental leakage of urine or incontinence in older women, according to a study.

Researchers from the University of California San Francisco found that daily yoga therapy boosts pelvic health and averts the chances of urinary incontinence in older women. Their study involved 20 women aged 40 and above who lived in Bay area and suffered from involuntary urination. Half of these participants took part in daily yoga sessions for six weeks and had 70 percent improvement in their incontinence problem compared to those in the control group.

Urine incontinence occurs in older people when their bladder muscles are too weak or too active. Urine discharge by doing simple activities like coughing, sneezing, bending, laughing and lifting heavy objects that exert pressure in the abdominal areas are called stress incontinence. Yoga helps to reduce anxiety, stress and depression by inducing relaxation in both body and mind. It strengthens the muscles in the pelvic region that supports the urinary bladder and prevents uncontrolled flow of urine.

"We thought this would be a good opportunity for women to use yoga to become more aware of and have more control over their pelvic floor muscles" Alison Huang, study author and assistant professor in the UCSF School of Medicine said in a news release.

The data by the National Association for Continence suggest nearly 25 million American adults suffer from urinary incontinence and 80 percent of these people are women. Among men the condition is often associated to disorders in the prostate and women aged 65 and above have high probability of suffering from unprompted urination.

"We specifically developed a yoga therapy program that would be safe for older women, including women with minor mobility limitations," Huang said. "So we were partially assessing safety of this program for older women who are at highest risk for having incontinence in the first place."

The authors believe only specific forms of yoga can help build pelvic muscles and protect against urinary incontinence. More information is available online in the journal Female Pelvic Medicine and Reconstruction Surgery.