Meditation Helps Reduce Heart Disease Risks
Transcendental meditation (TM) may help blood vessels relax as it relaxes the mind, reducing heart disease risks along the way, according to a presentation at the recent annual meeting of the American Psychosomatic Society.
According to the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM), meditation is one of the most common mind-body interventions. Meditation is a conscious mental process that induces a set of integrated physiological changes in the body, termed the relaxation response.
A medical technology called functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) has been used to identify and characterize the brain regions that are active during meditation.
Research conducted in this area suggests that various parts of the brain known to be involved in attention and in the control of the autonomic nervous system are activated, providing a neurochemical and anatomical basis for the effects of meditation on various physiological activities.
Recent studies involving imaging are advancing the understanding of mind-body mechanisms. For example, meditation has been shown in one study to produce significant increases in left-sided anterior brain activity, which is associated with positive emotional states.
And, meditation has been associated with increases in antibody titers to influenza vaccine, suggesting potential linkages among meditation, positive emotional states, localized brain responses, and improved immune function.
A decrease in blood pressure following TM is the main finding of an eight-month study involving 111 African-American teens on the threshold of becoming hypertensive adults.
Researchers report that just two 15-minute TM sessions per day were enough to trigger an average 21 percent increase in the ability of the teens' blood vessels to dilate.
In contrast, African-American teens who did not meditate experienced an average 4 percent decrease in blood vessel dilation over the study period.
"Our blood vessels are not rigid pipes,” says lead investigator Dr. Vernon A. Barnes, a physiologist at the Medical College of Georgia's Georgia Prevention Institute. “They need to dilate and constrict, according the needs of the body.
"If this improvement in the ability to dilate can be replicated in other at-risk groups and cardiovascular disease patients, this could have important implications for inclusion of meditation programs to prevent and treat cardiovascular diseases and its clinical consequences," Dr. Barnes says.
"We know this type of change is achievable with lipid-lowering drugs, but it's remarkable that a meditation program can produce such a change," he explains.
"Change can't be expected overnight," Dr. Barnes stresses. "Meditation and other positive lifestyle habits such as exercising and eating right have to become part of your life, like brushing your teeth.
“With the high prevalence of heart disease we have in our country today, this is something that should be considered,” he says of meditation. Meditation is inexpensive and has no side effects, Dr. Barnes notes.
Always consult your physician for more information.
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US Adults Using Complementary Medicine
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According to a nationwide government survey conducted in 2004, 36 percent of US adults aged 18 years and over use some form of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM).
CAM is defined as a group of diverse medical and health care systems, practices, and products that are not presently considered to be part of conventional medicine. When prayer specifically for health reasons is included in the definition of CAM, the number of US adults using some form of CAM in the past year rises to 62 percent.
"These new findings confirm the extent to which Americans have turned to CAM approaches with the hope that they would help treat and prevent disease and enhance quality of life," says Dr. Stephen E. Straus, director, National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM).
"The data not only assists us in understanding who is using CAM, what is being used, and why, but also in studying relationships between CAM use and other health characteristics, such as chronic health conditions, insurance coverage, and health behaviors," he says.
The survey, administered to over 31,000 representative US adults, was conducted as part of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's (CDC) 2002 National Health Interview Survey (NHIS). The survey included questions on 27 types of CAM therapies commonly used in the US. These included 10 types of provider-based therapies, such as acupuncture and chiropractic, and 17 other therapies that do not require a provider, such as natural products (herbs or botanical products), special diets, and megavitamin therapy.
Although there have been many surveys of CAM use to date, the various surveys included fewer choices of CAM therapies. In addition, they often surveyed smaller population samples, primarily relying on telephone or mail surveys versus in-person interviews used for this survey.
Thus, the results from the CAM portion of the NHIS provide the most comprehensive and reliable data to date describing CAM use by the US adult population.
Overall, the survey revealed that CAM use was greater among a variety of population groups, including women; people with higher education; those who had been hospitalized within the past year; and former smokers, compared to current smokers or those who had never smoked.
In addition, this was the first survey to yield substantial information on CAM use by minorities. For example, it found that African-American adults were more likely than Caucasian or Asian adults to use CAM when megavitamin therapy and prayer were included in the definition of CAM.
CAM approaches were most often used to treat back pain or problems, colds, neck pain or problems, joint pain or stiffness, and anxiety or depression. However, only about 12 percent of adults sought care from a licensed CAM practitioner, suggesting that most people who use CAM do so without consulting a practitioner.
Always consult your physician for more information.
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