One of the first long-term studies of Transcendental Meditation has found that the practice was associated with significantly lower rates of death.

The study’s authors said Transcendental Meditation already has been shown to reduce risk factors for heart disease such as high blood pressure, stress and smoking. In the new study, those health improvements suggest lower death rates as well, they said.

“This is the first to show that in a rigorous, long-term study,” said lead author, Robert Schneider, director of the Center of Natural Medicine and Prevention at the Maharishi University of Management in Fairfield, Iowa.

However, other researchers not associated with the study said that while its findings seem to make sense, larger studies are needed before the technique can definitively be linked to lower death rates.

“Intuitively it makes sense that relaxation may have a benefit on cardiovascular disease mortality,” said Theodore Kotchen, a professor of medicine at the Medical College of Wisconsin, which is conducting its own Transcendental Meditation trials. “It is provocative and very encouraging.

“(But) it certainly is not a definitive study.”

The study, released Monday, appears in the American Journal of Cardiology.

The new research involved an analysis of two earlier studies, begun in the 1980s and ’90s, that involved 202 people, including 125 African-Americans, with an average age of 71. All of the participants had either mild high blood pressure or a condition called pre-hypertension.

The people were divided into two groups, those who practiced Transcendental Meditation twice a day for 20 minutes and those who engaged in some other relaxation techniques or who took part in a health education program.

The participants were followed for an average of 7.6 years and for as long as 18.8 years.

Compared with the other techniques, the Transcendental Meditation group had a 23% decrease in deaths from all causes and a 30% reduction in cardiovascular disease deaths.

Schneider said the reductions were similar to what is found in people who take cholesterol or blood pressure drugs.

“But they often have adverse side effects,” he said. “This utilizes the body’s own pharmacy without those side effects.”

In addition to lowering blood pressure, Schneider said there likely are several ways. Transcendental Meditation reduces mortality, including making it easier to quit smoking, strengthening the immune system, improving nervous system activity and reducing stress hormones.

“I personally think it’s related to a wide variety of changes,” he said.

The study was funded by the National Institutes of Health. The study’s findings are intriguing, but because of the small number of people in the trials “you have to pour in a large grain of salt,” said Jon Keevil, an assistant professor of heart and vascular care at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Keevil noted that similar trials of vitamin E suggested a heart benefit, but when studies involving thousands of people were done, the benefit failed to hold up.

Two years ago, UW researchers showed that a small group of Madison area people who were taught a different meditation technique had a substantially stronger immune system reaction to a flu shot than a group of people who had not undergone meditation training.

Transcendental Meditation, which is thousands of years old, is one of several meditation techniques. It is patented and promoted by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, the Indian guru made popular during the 1960s by the Beatles.

Learning the method takes about two hours a day over the course of six days and costs about $2,500, Schneider said.

Some meditation techniques focus on breathing, while others, including Transcendental Meditation, use specific sounds or mantras. Some techniques require a particular posture, while those who perform Transcendental Meditation lie out on mattresses, pillows and lawn chairs.
Schneider said that while other techniques might require the participant to concentrate,

Transcendental Meditation involves “watching your thinking go by.”

“It’s rest for the body while the mind is awake,” he said.

The Medical College now is conducting two similar Transcendental Meditation studies with Maharishi University. One involves 250 African-Americans from the Milwaukee area with high blood pressure. The other involves 250 African-Americans with coronary artery disease.

The new study adds to the growing amount of research about Transcendental Meditation, although there were not enough people in the study to recommend the technique for patients, said Clarence Grim, a clinical professor of medicine at the Medical College.

“It’s another piece of evidence suggesting these techniques might be of benefit,” Grim said. “We need larger studies.”

By John Fauber

SOURCE: Journal Sentinal
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