Yoga may help alleviate pain in people with fibromyalgia, the results of a new study indicate.

Fibromyalgia is a widespread pain in the muscles, ligaments and tendons. This can be similar to the pain experienced in arthritis. However, unlike arthritis, the joints are not deformed or damaged by the condition.

The condition is estimated to affect between 2-6% of people. As many as one in 50 people may experience fibromyalgia during their lifetime and the majority of sufferers are women.

This condition is not well understood and is described by the medical profession as being 'idiopathic' (i.e. an illness without an obvious cause). Standard care currently includes medications accompanied by exercise and coping skills approaches.

However a new US study has found that patients participating in a yoga programme showed significantly greater improvement in fibromyalgia symptoms and functioning compared to patients on a standard fibromyalgia care programme.

"Although yoga has been practiced for millennia, only recently have researchers begun to demonstrate yoga's effects on persons suffering from persistent pain," commented lead researcher, Dr James Carson of Oregon Health & Science University.

The programme used was known as ‘yoga of awareness' - it integrates a wide range of yoga-based techniques, including postures, breathing exercises, meditation and group discussions.

Given the much higher prevalence of fibromyalgia in women (80-90%), the researchers chose to include only women in this study. Fifty-three women over the age of 21 took part. All had been suffering with diagnosed fibromyalgia for at least one year and had been receiving some kind of treatment for the condition for at least three months. Of the participants, 25 did the yoga programme,while 28 received standard care.

Each yoga class included 40 minutes of gentle stretching poses, 25 minutes of meditation and 10 minutes of breathing techniques.

Both groups were then assessed for fibromyalgia symptoms and functional deficits.

The study found that the women assigned to the yoga programme showed significantly greater improvements on standardised measures of fibromyalgia symptoms and functioning, including pain, fatigue and mood.

"In addition, the results suggested the yoga intervention led to a beneficial shift in how patients cope with pain, including greater use of adaptive pain coping strategies, (e.g. acceptance and taking part in activities despite pain) and less use of maladaptive strategies (e.g. self-isolation, disengagement, confrontation)," Dr Carson said.

Details of these findings are published in the journal, Pain.