Massachusetts: Urgently Seeking Relief -- at this Yoga Class, the Practitioners Are Men Stricken With HIV

Unlike at most yoga classes sprouting across America, the practitioners drawn to Kim Amlong's free Sommerville seminars are in search of more than muscle tone or an escape from an over-programmed daily schedule. Stricken with HIV, the men whose bodies weekly mirror Amlong's contorting torso say they've turned to yoga for lifesaving improvements to both body and mind. Saying they're dissatisfied with their medical regimen, the men are lured by promises that Amlong's classes could bring physical relief from painful side effects of AIDS medications and teach poses that will strengthen their struggling immune systems.

Yoga's health benefits for AIDS patients remain unproven, and organizers say this summer's classes are an experiment -- a trial period during which Amlong and two assistants hope to identify yoga positions and stretching techniques that will bolster a participant's immune system. Forward bends and various twists could help heal a damaged liver, Amlong insists, while headstands are believed to aid the body's lymphatic system. Backbends, she said, could stimulate the thymus gland, as well as the heart and lungs. There is little definitive research about the techniques, and area hospitals have no doctors currently studying the claims. In America's AIDS community, however, Amlong's students say rising frustration with conventional treatments has left patients searching for alternative solutions.

Swasnand Balram, a Boston pharmacist who specializes in AIDS patients, said the advantages of yoga might prove wholly psychological. But a positive attitude, he said, can be a powerful palliative. The patients, middle-aged men in varying degrees of health, include yoga enthusiasts and novices alike. At a recent class, the men folded their bodies into Y-shapes, strapped with belts atop colorful mats, and listened to Amlong's soothing, professorial voice as she read from a book of Lebanese poetry and preached the merits of yoga. At 36, Amlong is thin and muscular, showing no indication of AIDS that has ravaged her immune system since 1998, 10 years after she was diagnosed with HIV. Without yoga, Amlong said, her progressing illness would have left her isolated and immobile.

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