WORLD / Health
Meditation won't boost health: study
(HealthDay)
Updated: 2007-07-14 02:28
There's no evidence that meditation eases health problems, according to
an exhaustive review of the accumulated data by Canadian researchers.
"There is an enormous amount of interest in using meditation as a form of
therapy to cope with a variety of modern-day health problems, especially
hypertension, stress and chronic pain, but the majority of evidence that
seems to support this notion is anecdotal, or it comes from poor quality
studies," concluded researchers Maria Ospina and Kenneth Bond of the
University of Alberta/Capital Health Evidence-based Practice Centre, in
Edmonton.
They analyzed 813 studies focused on the impact of meditation on various
conditions, including high blood pressure, cardiovascular disease and
substance abuse.
Released Monday, the report looked at studies on five types of meditation
practices: mantra meditation; mindfulness meditation; yoga, Tai Chi and
Qi Gong.
Some of the studies suggested that certain types of meditation could help
reduce blood pressure and stress and that yoga and other practices
increased verbal creativity and reduced heart rate, blood pressure and
cholesterol in healthy people.
However, the report authors said it isn't possible to draw any firm
conclusions about the effects of meditation on health, because the
existing studies are characterized by poor methodologies and other
problems.
"Future research on meditation practices must be more rigorous in the
design and execution of studies and in the analysis and reporting of
results," Ospina said in a prepared statement.
Bond added that the new report doesn't prove that meditation has no
therapeutic value, but it can inform medical practitioners that the
"evidence is inconclusive regarding its effectiveness."
For the general public, the report "highlights that choosing to practice
a particular meditation technique continues to rely solely on individual
experiences and personal preferences, until more conclusive scientific
evidence is produced," Ospina said.
The study was funded by the U.S. National Center for Complementary and
Alternative Medicine in Bethesda, Md., part of the National Institutes of
Health.
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