1978 at Ickwell Bury in Bedfordshire. The Foundation stated that yoga was not a therapy or cure but had "therapeutic benefits", whether physical, mental, or emotional, and it worked especially with "the physically handicapped". Newcombe notes that a third organisation, the Yoga Biomedical Trust, was founded in Cambridge in 1983 by a biologist, Robin Monro, to research complementary therapies. He found it hard to obtain research funding, and in the 1990s moved to London, focusing on training yoga teachers in yoga as therapy and providing yoga as individualised therapy, using pranayama, relaxation and asanas. Sports medicine From the point of view of sports medicine, asanas function as active stretches, helping to protect muscles from injury; these need to be performed equally on both sides, the stronger side first if used for physical rehabilitation. Research Methodology Much of the research on the therapeutic use of yoga has been in the form of preliminary studies or clinical trials of low methodological quality, including small sample sizes, inadequate control and blinding, lack of randomization, and high risk of bias. Further research is needed to quantify the benefits and to clarify the mechanisms involved. For example, a 2010 literature review on the use of yoga for depression stated, "although the results from these trials are encouraging, they should be viewed as very preliminary because the trials, as a group, suffered from substantial methodological limitations." A 2015 systematic review on the effect of yoga on mood and the brain recommended that future clinical trials should apply more methodological rigour. Mechanisms The practice of asanas has been claimed to improve flexibility, strength, and balance; to alleviate stress and anxiety, and to reduce the symptoms of lower back pain, without necessarily demonstrating the precise mechanisms involved. A review of five studies noted that three psychological (positive affect, mindfulness, self-compassion) and four biological mechanisms (posterior hypothalamus, interleukin-6, C-reactive protein and cortisol) that might act on stress had been examined empirically, whereas many other potential mechanisms remained to be studied; four of the mechanisms (positive affect, self-compassion, inhibition of the posterior hypothalamus and salivary cortisol) were found to mediate yoga's effect on stress. Low back pain Back pain is one reason people take up yoga, and since at least the 1960s some practitioners have claimed that it relieved their symptoms. A 2013 systematic review on the use of yoga for low back pain found strong evidence for short- and