According to Bikram Choudhury, founder of the widely popular Bikram style of yoga, Type 2 diabetes reflects “a poor marriage between the kidneys and the pancreas.”

Speaking at the 25th annual meeting of the American Holistic Medical Association, Mr. Choudhury explained that according to the principles of Ayurvedic medicine at the root of traditional yoga practices in India, many common disorders including diabetes reflect functional disharmony between the various organ systems.

“Modern medicine cannot cure or reverse the process of diabetes because it doesn’t understand the root of the problem.” The “marriage” between various organ systems is all too often dysfunctional: none of them are getting what they need from each other, and consequently, the body functions increasingly abnormally. In many people, “every relationship within the body is a bad marriage. Every step of our lives, we find inner disagreements and divorce. When nothing works right, you lose interest in living.”

From the yogic viewpoint, it is not surprising that one chronic disease begets others. “The heart hates the lungs and the lungs hate the heart. The lungs say to the heart, ‘You’re not doing your job properly.’ And the heart says, ‘Why should I? You don’t pay me (in oxygen) what you said you would.’ You need the mind to come in and make the systems work together properly.”

Yoga, which is literally translated as “union” involves entraining greater inter-systemic unity between various organ systems through breathing exercises and specific postures that not only stretch and tone the muscles but also preferentially shunt the circulation through the various organ systems.

There are many different systems and styles of yoga, but ultimately they share the common aims of harmonizing physiologic function and strengthening the mind-body connection. Mr. Choudhury’s system of Bikram Yoga, which concentrates on 26 specific postures, or Asanas, is practiced by more than 20 million people in the US.