Heart disease patients who practicetranscendental meditationto reduce stress have a50 percent lower death, heart attack and stroke ratethan those who do not meditate, according to a study carried out by researchers at the Medical College of Wisconsin, in the United States and published in the journal ‘Archives of Internal Medicine’.
In a clinical trial that spanned nine years, researchers followed the evolution of a total of 201 African-American patients, with a mean age of 59 years, whosearteries had narrowed. The participants were divided into two groups, one that practiced transcendental meditation techniques and another that received health education classes on traditional risk factors for heart problems, such as diet or physical exercise.
According to the director of the Institute of Natural Medicine and prevention of MUM, Robert Schneider, these results are the strongest documented effects that are produced by a body-mind intervention in relation to cardiovascular diseases. Thus they showed thattranscendental meditation -a stress-reducing technique-reduces the likelihood of death, non-fatal heart attacks and non-fatal strokes by 47 percent.
Since the participants in this study maintained their normal medication to control cardiovascular risk factors, including antihypertensive agents and medication to lower lipids (cholesterol, triglycerides …), meditation should be considered as a complement, not as a substitute, for normal medication.
