A long-term study of Transcendental Meditation has found that the practice has a great many benefits for individual health. Among the findings, the meditation technique known as TM already reduces risk factors for heart disease such as high blood pressure, stress and smoking.
But the new study suggests that TM may provide lower death rates as well.
The study, which was funded by the National Institutes of Health, was published this week in The American Journal of Cardiology.
The study involves an analysis of two earlier studies some dating all the way back to the 1980's. The sample is small [involving only 202 people] and the participants average age is 71. The analysis reports that the death rate of study participants using T.M. techniques was 23 percent lower from all causes and 30 percent lower from cardiovascular disease, compared with the participants using two other treatment methods.
It is already being challenged.
"Intuitively it makes sense that relaxation may have a benefit on cardiovascular disease mortality," said Theodore Kotchen, a professor of medicine at the Medical College of Wisconsin, which is conducting its own Transcendental Meditation trials. "It is provocative and very encouraging.
"[But] it certainly is not a definitive study."
The researchers that performed the study seemed to agree to a point saying in a statement, "Although the sample [size] was relatively modest, these preliminary results suggest that an effective stress reducing intervention may decrease mortality."
The researchers all agree that larger studies will be needed.
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