Meditation Won't Boost Health: Study

[kumble_rocks]

I am baffled by this new study which come out in yahoo news today... And the study was conducted US National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine and NOT by some drug company which has an ax to grind. I always thought mediation helped in lowering stress which helped in chronic diseases like diabetes or higher tension. And this has been the opinion many famous cardiologists and other health professionals.Their thought process was meditation and other forms of relaxation have beneficial effects because they activate the parasympathetic part of the autonomic nervous system, which helps calm down the body's fight-or-flight response, which is triggered by the body's sympathetic nervous system . On the flip side stress activated sympathetic system which causes the body to release hormones and those hormones can help make the body resistant to insulin. However, when the parasympathetic system is activated, the body's cells become more responsive to insulin. Also Meditation also had positive effects on heart rate variability, another measure of heart rate . A decrease in heart rate variability is a negative sign, and those in the health education group had a decrease in heart rate variability during the study period, while those in the meditation group saw a slight increase in heart rate variability. Anyways , I guess Buddhist monks in Tibet got it all wrong then !:embaressed_smile: Meditation Won't Boost Health: Study THURSDAY, July 12 (HealthDay News) -- There's no evidence that meditation eases health problems, according to an exhaustive review of the accumulated data by Canadian researchers. "There is an enormous amount of interest in using meditation as a form of therapy to cope with a variety of modern-day health problems, especially hypertension, stress and chronic pain, but the majority of evidence that seems to support this notion is anecdotal, or it comes from poor quality studies," concluded researchers Maria Ospina and Kenneth Bond of the University of Alberta/Capital Health Evidence-based Practice Centre, in Edmonton. They analyzed 813 studies focused on the impact of meditation on various conditions, including high blood pressure, cardiovascular disease and substance abuse. Released Monday, the report looked at studies on five types of meditation practices: mantra meditation; mindfulness meditation; yoga, Tai Chi and Qi Gong. Some of the studies suggested that certain types of meditation could help reduce blood pressure and stress and that yoga and other practices increased verbal creativity and reduced heart rate, blood pressure and cholesterol in healthy people. However, the report authors said it isn't possible to draw any firm conclusions about the effects of meditation on health, because the existing studies are characterized by poor methodologies and other problems. "Future research on meditation practices must be more rigorous in the design and execution of studies and in the analysis and reporting of results," Ospina said in a prepared statement. Bond added that the new report doesn't prove that meditation has no therapeutic value, but it can inform medical practitioners that the "evidence is inconclusive regarding its effectiveness." For the general public, the report "highlights that choosing to practice a particular meditation technique continues to rely solely on individual experiences and personal preferences, until more conclusive scientific evidence is produced," Ospina said. The study was funded by the U.S. National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine in Bethesda, Md., part of the National Institutes of Health.

[Lurker]

^^ It is a stupid study I dare say. There is no SINGLE approach that cures you of a certain disease(say high blood pressure). If a patient is suffering from High BP and he is advised to go on a exercise regime that doesnt mean his BP will come down unless he takes care of two other things - diet and medicine. If a patient is jogging everyday for an hour and eating all the salty and fatty food you can very well guess how his health is going to be. On the other hand if a patient is taking medicine only and no diet or exercise his chances of getting well soon would not be so good either. Meditation alone would never help. The key is to have a healthy lifestyle and embibe meditation into it. xx

[Guest dada_rocks]

I would like to have a closer look over whatever experiment they are passing off as research.

[kumble_rocks]

^^ It is a stupid study I dare say. There is no SINGLE approach that cures you of a certain disease(say high blood pressure). If a patient is suffering from High BP and he is advised to go on a exercise regime that doesnt mean his BP will come down unless he takes care of two other things - diet and medicine. If a patient is jogging everyday for an hour and eating all the salty and fatty food you can very well guess how his health is going to be. On the other hand if a patient is taking medicine only and no diet or exercise his chances of getting well soon would not be so good either. Meditation alone would never help. The key is to have a healthy lifestyle and embibe meditation into it. xx

Agree with you. The article does not indicate what kind of diet the subjects used to follow during the time of their analysis.

[kumble_rocks]

I would like to have a closer look over whatever experiment they are passing off as research.

The surprising thing is the research is not done by a drug company but by U.S. National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine. Usually these kind of institutes encourage meditation.

[Dhondy]

That's not a study, it's a meta-analysis of 813 studies. It's a very good way of looking at cumulative data when individual studies are of a small size. And what it's saying is that the studies available were of poor quality because of faulty design, and hence do not allow adequate conclusions to be drawn. That's always the problem with alternative medicine- small study size, faulty design, poorly planned.

[gator]

That's not a study, it's a meta-analysis of 813 studies. It's a very good way of looking at cumulative data when individual studies are of a small size. And what it's saying is that the studies available were of poor quality because of faulty design, and hence do not allow adequate conclusions to be drawn. That's always the problem with alternative medicine- small study size, faulty design, poorly planned.

spot on, Dhonds.... if i may add, the prevention effect of meditation on new diseases cannot be measured convincingly...

[Brainfade]

That's always the problem with alternative medicine- small study size, faulty design, poorly planned. Also, how do you know that one is really meditating? Just sitting silently with your legs crossed may or may not be meditation. To be honest, do we even know what meditation really is? First of all, someone needs to do real-time brain activity scans of "meditating" people, and come up with a standard of what really constitutes meditation. Kind of like the 15 degrees chucking standard :)! Once such a standard is established, real science can begin.

[kumble_rocks]

That's not a study, it's a meta-analysis of 813 studies. It's a very good way of looking at cumulative data when individual studies are of a small size. And what it's saying is that the studies available were of poor quality because of faulty design, and hence do not allow adequate conclusions to be drawn. That's always the problem with alternative medicine- small study size, faulty design, poorly planned.

What's you are take on meditation , Dhondy. The general consensus in layman's terms is that it does help to slow the heart rate through controlled breathing and this benefits all the body organs. In fact , I am told that Meditation alters brain patterns in ways that are likely permanent .Also new studies shows key parts of the brain actually get thicker through the practice.

[kumble_rocks]

That's always the problem with alternative medicine- small study size, faulty design, poorly planned. Also, how do you know that one is really meditating? Just sitting silently with your legs crossed may or may not be meditation. To be honest, do we even know what meditation really is? First of all, someone needs to do real-time brain activity scans of "meditating" people, and come up with a standard of what really constitutes meditation. Kind of like the 15 degrees chucking standard :)! Once such a standard is established, real science can begin.

It's already been done by numerous research team . In fact check out this article - http://www.news.wisc.edu/10420 In the first scientific article to come from its pioneering studies of long-term Buddhist meditation practitioners, a UW-Madison team has found that long-term meditators (or "adepts") show markedly different patterns of brain electrical oscillations compared to a group with no previous meditative experience, when both of them generated a standard meditative practice. The researchers, led by psychology and psychiatry professor Richard Davidson and Waisman Center scientist Antoine Lutz, say the findings suggest that mental training of the sort involved in meditation relies on mechanisms in the brain — called neural synchrony — involved in the global coordination of brain activity and could induce both short-term and long-term change in the brain. The findings appeared in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The study focused on a comparison of brain-oscillation patterns, reflecting neural synchrony, between a group of eight long-term Buddhist practitioners of traditional Tibetan meditation and a group of 10 healthy student volunteers who had no experience in meditation but who were taught meditation before the experiment. Neural synchrony is a mechanism by which groups of neurons, oscillating at different frequencies, fire in phase. The transient coordination of these neural circuits across the brain is comparable to the coordination of jazz musicians who are playing and improvising together. The UW team focused on the "gamma-band" rhythms, a range of fast-frequency oscillations that is associated with higher mental activity such as attention, learning and conscious perception. The subjects in the study were asked to generate a standard meditation state several times, alternating with a resting state. The type of meditation each group pursued involves the voluntary generation of compassion and loving kindness. It does not involve concentration on particular objects, memories or images, but instead, encourages the practitioner to generate loving kindness and compassion toward all feeling beings without thinking about anyone in particular. This "nonreferential" meditative state is designed to permeate the mind without focusing on any one person or being. Three findings emerged from the study. First, the research team found that the two groups had significantly different baseline brain-wave patterns in the resting state before the meditation began. Compared to the control group, the Buddhist monks had a higher ratio of "gamma-band" rhythms to slower oscillatory rhythms. This suggests that long-term meditation practice changes the baseline state of the brain. Second, the difference between the two groups increased sharply during meditation and remained higher than the baseline after meditation. Third, following each period of meditation in the post-meditation baseline state, the practitioners continued to display high-amplitude gamma synchrony compared with the controls. These findings indicate that mental training to increase compassion and loving kindness has profound effects on brain function. The results further suggest that these qualities are not fixed characteristics of people, but rather can be improved through practice and training.

[Dhondy]

What's you are take on meditation ' date=' Dhondy. The general consensus in layman's terms is that it does help to slow the heart rate through controlled breathing and this benefits all the body organs. In fact , I am told that Meditation alters brain patterns in ways that are likely permanent .Also new studies shows key parts of the brain actually get thicker through the practice.[/quote'] Don't really have one. No experience at all. Never practiced it, and obviously not "prescribed" it.

[beetle]

Bullshit! My father was taking medicine for hypertension for years till he started Pranayam and meditation.His doctor asked him to stop the medication when his medical condition improved drastically.

[kumble_rocks]

Bullshit! My father was taking medicine for hypertension for years till he started Pranayam and meditation.His doctor asked him to stop the medication when his medical condition improved drastically.

Was it under the guidance of Ramdev baba. I heard that lot of people with various different ailments ranging from hyper tension to cancer have benefited from him.

[Guest dada_rocks]

That's not a study, it's a meta-analysis of 813 studies. It's a very good way of looking at cumulative data when individual studies are of a small size. And what it's saying is that the studies available were of poor quality because of faulty design, and hence do not allow adequate conclusions to be drawn. That's always the problem with alternative medicine- small study size, faulty design, poorly planned.

I thought so. BTW I am not sure how they do these study but if it;s statistical analysis then doesn;t matter how many small individual sample size studies they analyze they will never get to the reality of representative ensemble of larger size.

[Guest dada_rocks]

Was it under the guidance of Ramdev baba. I heard that lot of people with various different ailments ranging from hyper tension to cancer have benefited from him.

Ramdev Baba's suggestion are very authentic.. My MIL a serious arthritic candidate is enjoying pain-free life due to comprehensive medicine of Ramdev Baba which involves turmeric consumption and yoga. She could not carry even her own purse now carries around my son (around 22 lb) .

[gator]

does he charge??? does he have disciples who have graduated under him and are now successful teachers themselves???

[Gaurav]

Meditation is overrated :giggle: I doubt the validity of your claim that meditation can cure cancer. There was another study on BBC that debunked the notion that positive thinking can reduce healing time for various diseases. Buddhist monks should milk my cows instead of wasting their time on some hill top :hysterical: I do think that Yoga is very good as a form of exercise minus the mumbo jumbo :wink_smile: Anyway don't mind my views :wink_smile:

[Guest dada_rocks]

does he charge??? does he have disciples who have graduated under him and are now successful teachers themselves???

In few cases where he actualy gives his own jherbal medicine he might charge nominal sum but usually it's all free advice telecast all over the world. I am not sure about the culture of graduating disciple. But recently MP govt did alot him a land piece to start his ayurveda study/teaching/practice centre. There was quite a ruckus by usual culprits over this land-alottment that's how I came to know. Hopefully sthg will come out of it lest govt gets changed in MP and well then ur guess is as good as mine.

[kumble_rocks]

Meditation is overrated :giggle: I doubt the validity of your claim that meditation can cure cancer. There was another study on BBC that debunked the notion that positive thinking can reduce healing time for various diseases. Buddhist monks should milk my cows instead of wasting their time on some hill top :hysterical: I do think that Yoga is very good as a form of exercise minus the mumbo jumbo :wink_smile: Anyway don't mind my views :wink_smile:

What makes you think we ever do ? :wink_smile:

[Gaurav]

What makes you think we ever do ? :wink_smile:

Don't lie! You know you look up to me and your whole life revolves around my teachings :hysterical: Time for gurudakshina is coming soon! Teri e-banking details mangunga mein :hysterical: