The United States National Institute of Health (NIH), one of the world's foremost medical research centers, has released a video which reveals “science behind yoga". An NIH release announcing this has said that “there is a growing body of evidence that yoga may be beneficial for low-back pain". “Due to a growing body of evidence-based research, the American College of Physicians and the American Pain Society now include a number of mind and body approaches, including yoga", the release points out. It states that number of American adults using yoga “is on the rise as mind and body therapies are becoming increasingly integrated into the health care system". Lauding NIH efforts in this direction, acclaimed Hindu statesman Rajan Zed, in a statement in Nevada (USA) today, urged NIH to provide more funding and support for yoga research, as although introduced and nourished by Hinduism, yoga was a world heritage to be utilized and benefited by all. About 16 million Americans, including many celebrities, now do yoga. Zed, who is President of Universal Society of Hinduism, has also asked Government of India to launch a mega project to research, preserve, and promote yoga and open a world-class institute to support the yoga research and studies around the globe. Rajan Zed further said that yoga, referred as “a living fossil" whose traces went back to around 2,000 BCE to Indus Valley civilization, was a mental and physical discipline handed down from one guru to next, for everybody to share and benefit from. According to Patanjali who codified it in Yoga Sutra, yoga was a methodical effort to attain perfection, through the control of the different elements of human nature, physical and psychical, Zed added. “This video provides important information on the safety and usefulness of yoga and also insights into how scientists study this commonly used health practice. What we're seeing from our researchers—through the application of rigorous scientific methods—is evidence suggesting that yoga may help people manage certain symptoms...", NIH release adds. NIH, an agency of United States Government headquartered in Bethesda (Maryland) which invests about $31 billion annually in medical research, traces its roots to 1887 and over 130 Nobel Prize winners have received support from it. Francis S. Collins is the Director.
