Yoga may be the answer for people disabled by chronic lower back pain, research suggests.
Patients taught the ancient Eastern practice experienced a greater improvement in back function than those given conventional treatment alone.
The study involved 313 patients with chronic or recurrent back pain undergoing various forms of treatment including painkillers and physiotherapy. In addition to their normal treatment, half were assigned to the specially designed three-month yoga programme.
At the end of the programme, they were able to undertake 30% more activities than the group confined to "usual care" - a finding that was statistically significant. Although the yoga group also experienced greater pain reduction, the difference was marginal.
The findings were published in the journal Annals of Internal Medicine.
Research leader Professor David Torgeson, from the University of York, said: "Back pain is an extremely common and costly condition. Exercise treatment, although widely used and recommended, has only a small effect on back pain.
"We, therefore, set out to investigate an alternative approach using a specially developed weekly yoga programme for back pain sufferers to see if this allowed them to manage their back pain more successfully."
Lower back pain will affect 80% of people in the UK at some point in their lives. It is estimated that around 4.9 million working days a year are lost due to back pain.
Professor Alan Silman, medical director of Arthritis Research UK, which funded the study, said: "We're delighted that our trial has shown that yoga provides such positive benefits for people with chronic low back pain. This extremely common condition cannot be managed with painkillers alone and there is an urgent need to have non-drug therapies that sufferers can utilise in their own home.
"This trial is part of our larger commitment to seek self-help solutions to this common musculoskeletal problem. There are compelling explanations why yoga may be helpful and this trial lends powerful support to the wider use of this approach."