- Design
- Systematic review and meta-analysis of 21 studies
- Population
- 1,471 older adults across diverse populations
- Primary outcome
- Leg strength, static and dynamic balance, quality of life
- Effect
- Dynamic balance non-significant and leg strength borderline after trim-and-fill; quality of life unchanged
This meta-analysis pooled 21 studies with 1,471 older adults, looking at yoga's effects on leg strength, static and dynamic balance and quality of life.
The unadjusted analysis suggested benefits for dynamic balance, leg strength and quality of life, but not static balance. After trim-and-fill adjustment for likely publication bias, the dynamic-balance benefit was no longer significant and the leg-strength benefit became borderline. The quality-of-life improvement was unchanged. Subgroup analyses could not identify an optimal frequency, duration or session length.
Yoga is popular and safe for most older adults, so it is a reasonable activity to encourage for wellbeing. For falls prevention specifically, it should not replace the progressive balance and strength training that has the strongest evidence.
- Encourage yoga for quality of life in older adults who enjoy it.
- Do not rely on yoga alone for falls prevention; prescribe progressive balance and strength training.
- Balance and strength benefits were not robust after accounting for publication bias.
- No optimal yoga dose or session length could be identified.
Why it matters
Yoga is often recommended for falls prevention, but its balance benefit is less certain than assumed.
Don't overread it
Quality-of-life gains are self-reported and the studies were heterogeneous.
The statistics, in plain English
Trim-and-fill estimates what the result would look like if small negative studies that were never published were included. When an effect disappears after this adjustment, the original finding may have been inflated by publication bias.
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