The practice of meditation, apart from the psychological benefit, causes a feeling of physical relaxation in our body. A study from the University of Wisconsin-Madisonha (USA) has shown indications that the effects of this state of mental abstraction could go beyond muscle strain, by generating an alteration in the expression of our genes. It is the first scientific work to cover this topic .
To obtain this conclusion, the team analyzed the effects of a day of mindful meditation in a group of subjects who were fond of this practice compared to another control group who performed other types of silent activities. The observations showed a series of molecular alterations in the first after the development of the activity, specifically a low regulation of the RIPK2 and COX2 genes involved in the inflammatory process, which leads to a rapid recovery from a stressful situation. The authors assure that this is evidence that the practice of meditation triggers epigenetic alterations in the genome. In fact, as Perla Kaliman, lead author of the article and researcher at the Barcelona Institute for Biomedical Research (IIBB-CSIC
-IDIBAPS), where the molecular analyzes were carried out, “the most interesting changes were observed in the genes that are the current targets of anti-inflammatory and analgesic drugs,” he points out.
Previous clinical studies have suggested that meditation is capable of shaping the areas of gray matter in the brain related to memory, empathy and stress, and thus unleash an important body benefit. However, experts are cautious and say that it is too early to extol meditation as a new medical therapy .
