The report is a product of the VA/HSR Evidence Synthesis Program.

Evidence Map of Yoga for Various Adult Physical and Mental Health Issues: Update from 2014–2025

Takeaway: This updated evidence map of 37 systematic reviews includes those published since 2014 and that also formally assessed the certainty of evidence. Moderate-certainty conclusions were found for outcomes that included physical function and physical and mental well-being, including: frailty, cancer-related anxiety and depression, coronary artery disease (health-related quality of life and risk factors), asthma (quality of life and symptoms), coronary artery bypass graft (anxiety), chronic non-specific low back pain (quality of life), sleep quality, rheumatoid arthritis (disease activity scores), knee osteoarthritis (pain), and Parkinson’s disease (motor symptoms and muscle strength). The evidence base demonstrates outcome-specific effects, with conclusions varying by the specific outcomes measured within the same health issue. In Parkinson’s disease, yoga probably improves motor symptoms and muscle strength, but not balance, based on moderate-certainty evidence. In chronic non-specific low back pain, yoga probably improves quality of life, but not back-specific function or pain, based on moderate-certainty evidence. High-certainty conclusions were not identified for any condition or outcome and many more mapped conditions had low- or very low-certainty evidence. Across the included reviews, inconsistency in the reporting of yoga type, dose, frequency, and duration precludes meaningful comparisons across primary studies and limits the extent to which higher certainty conclusions can be drawn from the evidence. Adverse-event evidence was similarly limited, as adverse events were mentioned in fewer than half of the included reviews and were inconsistently addressed. The findings should be interpreted as outcome-specific rather than evidence of yoga’s uniform benefit across health issues, and interpretation should account for the heterogeneity in intervention characteristics, comparators, populations, and outcomes measured. Additional primary research with rigorous methodology, longer follow-up, standardized intervention reporting, and systematic adverse-event monitoring is needed to strengthen conclusions across health issues.

Yoga is widely used in VA healthcare as a complementary and integrative health intervention, and research on yoga for health has grown substantially. In response to a request from the VHA Office of Patient Centered Care & Cultural Transformation, HSR’s Evidence Synthesis Program (ESP) Center in Los Angeles provided an updated evidence map to summarize systematic reviews published since 2014 that formally assessed the certainty (the strength or quality) of evidence for practitioner-led yoga-based interventions. The evidence map provides a visual overview of where the evidence is more versus less robust across adult physical and mental health issues, with accompanying narrative to help policymakers and clinicians interpret the evidence.

The ESP team searched MEDLINE, Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, AMED, and Embase from 2014 through May 2025 to map systematic review conclusions across 38 adult physical and mental health issues.

Summary of Findings

• This updated evidence map includes 37 systematic reviews representing 54 conclusions about yoga’s effect on 38 physical and mental health issues.
• Many conditions demonstrated low or very low certainty for conclusions, including for diabetes care, migraine, PTSD symptoms, and irritable bowel syndrome. High-certainty conclusions were not identified, and 13 of the conclusions were rated as moderate certainty.
• Moderate-certainty evidence of the potential benefit of yoga was most commonly reported for physical function and physical and mental well-being, including: frailty, cancer-related anxiety and depression, coronary artery disease (health-related quality of life and risk factors), asthma (quality of life and symptoms), coronary artery bypass graft (anxiety), chronic non-specific low back pain (quality of life), sleep quality, rheumatoid arthritis (disease activity scores), knee osteoarthritis (pain), and Parkinson’s disease (motor symptoms and muscle strength).
• The evidence base demonstrates outcome-specific effects, with conclusions varying by the specific outcomes measured within the same health issue. In Parkinson’s disease, yoga probably improves motor symptoms and muscle strength, but not balance, based on moderate-certainty evidence. In chronic non-specific low back pain, yoga probably improves quality of life, but not back-specific function or pain, based on moderate-certainty evidence.
• Reviews varied in how specifically they reported yoga interventions, with 13 reporting non-specified yoga, 23 reporting multiple yoga styles analyzed together, and 1 focusing on a single style.
• Across the included reviews, inconsistency in the reporting of yoga type, dose, frequency, and duration precludes meaningful comparisons across primary studies and limits the extent to which higher certainty conclusions can be drawn from the evidence.
• Adverse events were mentioned in fewer than half (17 of 37) of the included reviews and were inconsistently addressed. Only 4 reviews formally rated the certainty of evidence for adverse events (all were rated low or very low certainty).

Implications

This updated evidence map used different eligibility and synthesis methods for included reviews than the 2014 ESP yoga evidence map, including the requirement that systematic reviews formally assessed the certainty of evidence. Overall, the evidence base suggests potential benefit for a limited set of outcomes, but higher-certainty conclusions remain uncommon and significant heterogeneity in yoga research limits the extent to which higher-certainty conclusions can be drawn from the evidence. Moderate-certainty findings were more frequently associated with selected functional and patient-reported outcomes, while conclusions varied by population, comparator, and outcome domain. Given the substantial heterogeneity across the included reviews, findings should be interpreted as outcome-specific rather than evidence of yoga’s uniform benefit across health issues. Implementation and clinical decision-making should therefore consider the specific health issue, outcome, yoga intervention, comparator, and safety-monitoring context.

Limitations

Some relevant reviews might not have been identified despite the ESP investigators’ search of 4 databases. The ESP investigators abstracted conclusions as reported by the original review authors; while moderate- and high-certainty ratings were re-examined and downgraded where warranted, the evidence map otherwise relies on conclusions and certainty ratings as assigned by the included reviews. In addition, the evidence map inherits substantial variability in how yoga interventions were defined and reported across the included reviews.

Future Research

Well-designed trials are needed to assess yoga’s effects on physical and mental health conditions that currently lack at least moderate-certainty evidence. The trials should include an assessment of the durability of yoga’s effects. Future studies should also clearly define comparators; implement prespecified, systematic adverse event monitoring and reporting; and develop or adopt clear intervention protocols and standardized reporting approaches to improve comparability and rigor across studies.

Citation

Mak S, Zaccari B, Amano A, et al. Evidence Map of Yoga for Various Adult Physical and Mental Health Issues: Update from 2014–2025. Washington, DC: Evidence Synthesis Program, Health Systems Research, Office of Research and Development, Department of Veterans Affairs. VA ESP Project #05-226; 2026.

To view the full report, go to vaww.hsrd.research.va.gov/publications/esp/yoga-map.cfm. (This report is available via intranet only.)

How can VA leadership work with the ESP? Nominations for systematic review topics may be submitted to the program at any time. When you submit a topic nomination form, ESP Coordinating Center staff will work with you to determine the appropriate research approach and ESP product to address your questions of interest. Topics are selected and assigned to an ESP Center based on program capacity and alignment with VA national goals.

This Management Brief is provided to inform you about recent HSR findings that may be of interest. The views expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the position or policy of the Department of Veterans Affairs. If you have any questions or comments about this Brief, please email CIDER. The Center for Information Dissemination and Education Resources (CIDER) is a VA HSR Resource Center charged with disseminating important HSR findings and information to policy makers, managers, clinicians, and researchers working to improve the health and care of Veterans.

This report is a product of VA/HSR's Evidence Synthesis Program (ESP), which was established to provide timely and accurate synthesis of targeted healthcare topics of particular importance to VA managers and policymakers, and to disseminate these reports throughout VA.

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