Pam Schulte, owner of Just Practice Yoga, acknowledges that she and her students have suffered the occasional injury from yoga.

"Well duh," she said. "Have you seen what people do in those classes? This idea that yoga is this holier-than-thou regimen where no one should ever get injured is not realistic. It's not realistic to think that way about anything."

Yoga has been practiced for thousands of years in India and has exploded in the U.S. in the past two decades. According to a survey by the National Institutes for Health, more than 13 million American adults did some form of the discipline in 2006, a number that has likely increased.

But researchers only began taking a hard look at the discipline in the past decade. What they're finding is that while pretty much everyone could benefit from yoga, it's not the one-stop, cure-all regimen that many yogis say it is. And it can cause injuries, some quite serious.

The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission reported 5,500 yoga-related injuries in 2007. A chapter in William J. Broad's book "The Science of Yoga: The Risks and the Rewards" focuses on injuries sustained by veteran yogis, many serious enough to cause permanent damage and even paralysis.

Dr. Michael J. Milne, a surgeon with the Orthopedic Center of St. Louis and a team physician with the St. Louis Cardinals, is one of a number of local doctors who have seen patients who were injured on a yoga mat.

Most are nonsurgical injuries and include sprains and strains, Milne said. But he's also seen patients who have ruptured their Achilles tendons or torn the meniscus in their knees while doing the downward dog yoga position.

"A lot of times it's people who are new to yoga who have no flexibility and try to keep up with others in their class," he said.

He's also seen patients with torn rotator cuffs in the shoulder, who did not feel a sudden tear. They will often say that they started yoga a few months before their shoulder started hurting, Milne said.

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Yoga: Don’t bend until you break