Effect of Yoga on pulmonary function tests.

Background: Yoga is considered to be a very good exercise for maintaining proper health. The present work was planned to find effects of 10 weeks Yoga practice on some pulmonary function tests. Methods: The present study was conducted on 40 subjects, (30 males and 10 females) who came voluntarily as subjects for the project with written and informed consent. It was a prospective study on healthy volunteers from both sex of age between 20 to 65 years. Various Pulmonary Function Tests (PFTs) were measured. Results: Respiratory rate was decreased while Breath Holding Time (BHT) and Maximum Ventilatory Volume (MVV) were found to be increased in both male and female subjects. Conclusions: From this study we conclude that yoga practice can be advocated to improve respiratory efficiency for healthy individuals as well as an alternative therapy or as adjunct to conventional therapy in respiratory diseases.

Comparative study of serum lipid profile between prehypertensive and normotensive.

Background: Prehypertensive subjects have greater risk of developing hypertension than the normotensive subjects. Studies have shown that lipid profile is altered in hypertensive patients as compare to normotensive subjects. But not much is documented about lipid profile in prehypertensives. So the present study is done to compare the serum lipid profile among prehypertensive and normotensives and to correlate the blood pressure and lipid profile in prehypertensives. Methods: 50 prehypertensive and 50 normotensive subjects were recruited from the general population. Blood pressures were recorded and serum lipid profiles were measured and compare using student t test. Correlation of serum lipid profile and blood pressure was done using person correlation. Results: The study results showed significant increased in total cholesterol, LDL, VLDL and serum triglyceride level in prehypertensives compare to normotensives. While there is no significant change in HDL level in prehypertensive compare to normotensive. And there is also a significant correlation between blood pressure and lipid profile in prehypertensive subjects. Conclusion: Lipid profile is altered in prehypertensives compare to normotensives. That’s why timely diagnoses and life style modification is required in prehypertensives.

A comparative study of visual reaction time in table tennis players and healthy controls.

Visual reaction time is time required to response to visual stimuli. The present study was conducted to measure visual reaction time in 209 subjects, 50 table tennis (TT) players and 159 healthy controls. Methods: The visual reaction time was measured by the direct RT computerized software in healthy controls and table tennis players. Simple visual reaction time was measured. During the reaction time testing, visual stimuli were given for eighteen times and average reaction time was taken as the final reaction time. Results: The study shows that table tennis players had faster reaction time than healthy controls. On multivariate analysis, it was found that TT players had 74.121 sec (95% CI 98.8 and 49.4 sec) faster reaction time compared to non-TT players of same age and BMI. Also playing TT has a profound influence on visual reaction time than BMI. Conclusion: Our study concluded that persons involved in sports are having good reaction time as compared to controls. These results support the view that playing of table tennis is beneficial to eye-hand reaction time, improve the concentration and alertness