Heart Disease :: Try transcendental meditation

Performing transcendental meditation, a relaxation technique derived from the ancient Vedic tradition in India, may improve cardiac risk factor in people with coronary heart disease, says a study.

Maura Paul-Labrador and colleagues at Cedars-Sinai Medical Centre in Los Angeles conducted a 16-week trial of transcendental meditation in patients with coronary heart disease and found that it decreased blood pressure and reduced insulin resistance in them, reported Newswise wire.

Fifty-two of the total 103 participants, average 67.7 years of age, were instructed in transcendental meditation and 51 control patients, average age of 67.1 years, received health education.

At the beginning and end of the trial, the patients fasted overnight and then gave a blood sample, participated in a medical history review and underwent tests of blood vessel function and heart rate variability.

Heart rate variability testing assesses the functioning of the autonomic nervous system, which controls the heart and other involuntary muscles.

At the end of the trial, the researchers found that patients in the transcendental meditation group had significantly lower blood pressure; improved fasting blood glucose and insulin levels, which signify reduced insulin resistance; and more stable functioning of the autonomic nervous system.

“These physiological effects were accomplished without changes in body weight, medication or psychosocial variables and despite a marginally statistically significant increase in physical activity in the health education group,” the study says.

Transcendental Meditation was introduced to the world by Indian guru Maharishi Mahesh Yogi 40 years ago.

Over 500 scientific research studies conducted during the past 25 years at more than 200 independent universities and research institutes in 30 countries have shown that the meditation programme benefits all areas of an individual’s life: mind, body, behaviour, and environment, claims a report on the Maharishi Vedic University’s website.

Transcendental meditation has previously been shown to lower blood pressure but its effect on other risk factors associated with coronary heart disease, including those linked to the metabolic syndrome, has not been thoroughly examined.

The metabolic syndrome refers to a cluster of symptoms that increase cardiac risk, including high blood pressure (hypertension), abdominal obesity, high cholesterol and insulin resistance, which occurs when the body is unable to use the insulin produced by the pancreas to process sugar into energy.


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