ABSTRACT
Context/Background: Lifestyle interventions have proven to reduce the incidence of type 2 diabetes mellitus and prevent the complications. Yoga is considered safe, simple to learn, and can be practiced even by ill, obese, elderly, or disabled persons at home. The present study was conducted to assess the effect of one year of yoga therapy on lipid profile, BMI, and blood pressure in subjects with type 2 diabe-tes mellitus. Methodology: This randomized controlled trial was conducted in an Urban Health center, Belagavi from July 2018 to December 2019. Around 120 participants diagnosed with type 2 diabetes mellitus were randomized into “Yoga” and “Exercise” groups. Fasting lipid profile, BMI, and blood pressure were exam-ined at baseline, six months, and after one year of intervention. Results: GEE model analysis showed that there were significant effects of Intervention × Time on Cho-lesterol (p=0.001), LDL (p=0.006) and VLDL (p=0.000). It was identified that the exercise intervention was found to decrease cholesterol and TG significantly more than the yoga group. Also, there was a sig-nificant reduction in BMI in both the exercise and yoga groups at the end of six months and one year (p=0.247). Conclusions: Yoga can be a complementary therapy for type 2 diabetes, along with medications and ex-ercise.