TM reduces congestive heart failure: new study

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The Transcendental Meditation Program® Reduces Congestive Heart

Failure,

New Study Shows

 

Results of NIH-Funded Study Published in Ethnicity & Disease

 

(MARCH 1, 2007) A widely practiced, stress-reducing meditation technique

significantly decreases the severity of congestive heart failure,

according to a first-of-its-kind randomized study published in Ethnicity

& Disease (Winter 2007).

 

Researchers from the University of Pennsylvania evaluated 23

African-American men and women, average age 64, who were recently

hospitalized with New York Heart Association class II or III congestive

heart failure. Participants were randomized to either the Transcendental

Meditation technique or health education & mdash; in addition to

usual medical care.

 

Researchers measured changes in heart function with a six-minute walk

test, and measures for quality of life, depression, and

rehospitalizations. Changes in outcomes from baseline to three and six

months after treatment were analyzed.

According to lead author, Ravishankar Jayadevappa, Ph.D., of the

University of Pennsylvania Department of Medicine, the TM® group

significantly improved on the six-minute walk test after both three and

six months of TM practice compared to the control group. The TM group

also showed improvements in quality of life measurements, depression,

and had fewer rehospitalizations.

 

According to the American Heart Association, congestive heart failure

accounts for more than 2.5 million hospital admissions per year in the

U.S. Nearly 500,000 new patients are diagnosed with congestive heart

failure every year & mdash; and 300,000 patients die each year from this

disease. Despite advances in treatment, the number of deaths from

congestive heart failure increased steadily over the past decade.

On top of these high levels, African-Americans have twice the mortality

rates from congestive heart failure as white Americans.

 

The Transcendental Meditation program improves heart functioning likely

by reducing sympathetic nervous system activation associated with stress

that is known to contribute to the failing heart, according to the

authors.

 

" The results indicate that TM can be effective in improving the

functional capacity, and quality of life, of congestive heart failure

patients. These results also suggest long-term improvements in survival

in these individuals " Dr. Jayadevappa said.

 

Further validation of the outcomes is planned via a large multicenter

trial with long-term follow-up.

 

" This present finding is consistent with previous research demonstrating

that the Transcendental Meditation program reduces factors that

contribute to the cause or progression of heart failure, such as high

blood pressure, stress, metabolic syndrome, left ventricular hypertrophy

(enlargement of the heart) and severity of atherosclerosis (hardening of

the arteries), " said Robert Schneider, M.D., F.A.C.C., coauthor of the

study and director of the Institute for Natural Medicine and Prevention

at Maharishi University of Management in Fairfield, Iowa.

 

The study was sponsored by the National Institutes of Health & ndash;

National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NIH-NCCAM)

in a collaboration between the University of Pennsylvania with the

Institute for Natural Medicine and Prevention at Maharishi University of

Management.

 

Ethnicity & Disease, the official journal of the International Society

on Hypertension in Blacks, is an international publication that

exclusively publishes information on the causal relationships in the

etiology of common illnesses through the study of ethnic patterns of

disease. Citation for this article is: Jayadevappa R, Johnson JC, Bloom

BS, et al, Effectiveness of Transcendental Meditation on functional

capacity and quality of life of African Americans with congestive heart

failure: a randomized control study. Ethn Dis. 2007;17:72-77.

 

The complete article is available at

http://ishib.org/ED_journal_17_1.asp.

 

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