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ISLAMABAD: Meditation can help heart health, a study from the Medical College of Georgia shows.

The study was small, but its results were encouraging. Meditation may prove to be a beneficial addition to lifestyle and/or medical approaches to heart disease, say Frank Treiber, PhD, and colleagues.

Treiber directs the Georgia Prevention Institute at the Medical College of Augusta. He and his colleagues reported their findings in Orlando, Fla., at the Second International Conference on Women, Heart Disease, and Stroke.

Participants were 36 black females who were about 16 years old. All of them had high to normal systolic blood pressure (prehypertension). That increased their risk of future heart disease.

The girls were assigned to either get four months of training in transcendental meditation (TM) or health education without meditation. Before the groups got underway, researchers checked the pliability of a blood vessel wall in the girls’ arms. Studies have shown that African-Americans have decrease pliability of blood vessels. TM has been shown to improve this function in young people with prehypertension.

Normal healthy blood vessels contract and expand; a very early sign of blood vessel disease is when this ability is impaired. A decrease in blood vessels’ ability to contract and expand is seen in high blood pressure.

The blood vessel pliability test was repeated four months later. The researchers compared the change in blood vessel function to the earlier test.

By the four-month follow-up, the transcendental meditation group had "improved significantly" its blood vessel function compared to the group which received health education only, say the researchers.

That might bode well for the girls’ future heart health. The blood vessel problems studied have been linked to high blood pressure, poor cholesterol, and coronary artery disease, say the researchers.

Transcendental meditation was popularized in recent decades by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. It’s easy to learn and doesn’t require any particular religious, spiritual, or philosophical beliefs, says Robert Schneider, MD.

Schneider directs the Center for Health and Aging Studies in Fairfield, Iowa. He is also a professor of physiology and Maharishi Ayurveda. He discussed meditation and aging in a previous WebMD Live Event.

Meditation has garnered lots of research attention. It’s been found to be good for the heart, immune system, PMS, and even breastfeeding and hot flashes. There seems to be no down side to meditation, but it doesn’t take the place of needed conventional medicine.

"There are many different forms of meditation," says Patricia Monaghan, author of Meditation, The Complete Guide. In a live event with WebMD, she counted more than 50 kinds of meditation.

You don’t need a mantra or a Zen-like room, and you don’t have to twist yourself into a pretzel, says Monaghan. Sitting and focusing on your breath works. So does meditating while walking. Classes teach the techniques, and the practice takes as little as 10 minutes a day, says Monaghan. "Everyone has 10 minutes," she says.

Labels: African-Americans, Frank Treiber, heart disease, Medical College of Georgia, meditation, transcendental meditation

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Monday, February 04, 2008

Heart Health

By Sam Manger
Epoch Times Australia Staff Jan 29, 2008

Emotions play an important role in our health.

"Heartbroken" and "heart-warming" have long been considered simple expressions with no significant medical meaning. However, research from the National Heart Foundation of Australia has clearly shown that depression, social isolation, and lack of quality social support are three significant risk factors for the development of coronary heart disease. [1]

Heart disease takes one Australian life every ten minutes, and is the leading cause of death in Australia. In 1993–1994 alone, the health system costs for coronary heart disease were around AU$900 million.

Had a patient asked a doctor twenty years ago whether they believed there was any association between the heart and love, they might have received a chuckle and a pat on the head. However, recent research indicates that joy and interaction are necessities to a healthy heart and body.

Many spiritual and alternative health philosophies have been oriented around the idea that disease is a physical manifestation of a corresponding damaged emotional or psychological condition. It has long been thought that parts of the body represent certain emotions or conditions. For example, the heart represents love; the back represents support, and so on. These ideas have generally received limited support from mainstream medicine, but are they really so far-fetched? Recent research would suggest not.

According to the World Health Organisation, by the year 2020 depression will be the second most prevalent health condition in the world. It is reported that the rate of childhood depression in the United States is increasing at a rate of 23 percent per year. This reflects the situation in Australia—rates of depression are highest in younger age groups, especially females. About half of those affected do not seek medical attention.

In 2001, Australian GPs reported that depression was the fourth most common illness in their practices. GPs have increased their number of prescriptions of antidepressants. The Age Online states that 250,000 antidepressant prescriptions were issued to children and adolescents alone in 2003—an increase of 30,000 from 2002. The statistics call for government and health professionals to take a different approach.

Antidepressants have various adverse effects, including violent and suicidal behavior. Most importantly, pills alone do not address the underlying cause of depression.

Faced with this, health professionals in the future may have to change their traditional approach and begin to incorporate apparently alternative paradigms. We may soon welcome a new age in wholistic medicine.

Labels: emotion, health, heart disease, Heart Foundation of Australia, love, Sam Manger, spirituality