International Journal of Research in Medical Sciences | October 2018 | Vol 6 | Issue 10 Page 3315 International Journal of Research in Medical Sciences Shetty B et al. Int J Res Med Sci. 2018 Oct;6(10):3315-3319 www.msjonline.org pISSN 2320-6071 | eISSN 2320-6012 Original Research Article Impact of short term yoga on anthropometric measures, body composition and serum lipid profile in overweight and obese adults: a pilot study Balakrishna Shetty 1 *, Geetha B. Shetty 2 , Manjula Shantaram 3 , Manjunath N. K. 4 INTRODUCTION Obesity and overweight are chronic medical conditions associated with an excessive fat accumulation in the body that may impair health and increases the risk of morbidity from several pathologies, including hypertension, dyslipidemia, type 2 diabetes, coronary heart disease, stroke, non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, osteoarthritis, sleep apnea, and endometrial, breast, prostate, and colon cancers. 1 It is a metabolic disorder affecting the people throughout the world and commonly caused by a combination of excessive food energy intake, lack of physical activity, genetic susceptibility, and other psychological problems. 2 Overweight and obesity have been called a global epidemic by the World Health Organization. Recent WHO Global estimates for overweight and obese had shown that in 2016, more than 1.9 billion adults aged 18 years and older were overweight. Of these over 650 million adults were obese. 3 The prevalence of adolescent and adult obesity is 1 Department of Biochemistry, 2 Department of Acupuncture, SDM College of Naturopathy and Yogic Sciences, Ujire, Karnataka, India 3 Department of Studies and Research in Biochemistry, Mangalore University, PG Centre, Jnana Kaveri, Chikka Aluvara, Kodagu, Karnataka, India 4 Research and Development, Swami Vivekananda Yoga Research Foundation, Bengaluru, Karnataka, India Received: 20 July 2018 Accepted: 28 August 2018 *Correspondence: Dr. Balakrishna Shetty, E-mail: bksujire@gmail.com Copyright: © the author(s), publisher and licensee Medip Academy. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License, which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. ABSTRACT Background: Excess bodyweight is the sixth most important risk factor contributing to the overall burden of disease worldwide. Overweight and obesity have been called a global epidemic by the World Health Organization. The epidemic reflects progressive decreases in physical activity, together with substantial dietary changes with passive over-consumption of energy despite the neurobiological processes controlling food intake. This pilot study was undertaken to find out the impact of yoga practice in overweight and obese individuals. Methods: total of 32 subjects with BMI, ≥23to ≤40 were selected for the study for a single group pre-post trial. The subjects had undergone yogic intervention for one hour in the morning for 10 days. The changes in anthropometric measures, body composition and serum lipid profile were assessed before and after 10 days of yoga therapy. Results: The data obtained was verified for normal distribution and analysed using paired t-test with SPSS (version 20.0) package. Significant decrease in body weight, BMI, triglycerides and total cholesterol in obese subjects and a significant decrease in body weight, BMI and triglycerides of overweight subjects was observed. Conclusions: The study demonstrates the efficacy of yogic practices on anthropometric measures and lipid profile subjects with overweight and obesity. Keywords: Body mass index, Obesity, Overweight, Yoga DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.18203/2320-6012.ijrms20184039