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[PHP-5] Meditation in the Prevention and Treatment of Cardiovascular Disease in African Americans: Review of Controlled Clinical Trials Robert H. Schneider, MD, Center for Natural Medicine and Prevention, College of Maharishi Vedic Medicine, Fairfield, Iowa
Robert H. Schneider, Sanford I. Nidich, Maxwell Rainforth, and John W. Salerno
Growing evidence indicates that psychosocial stress is a major contributor to the disproportionate and excessive rates of hypertension and cardiovascular disease (CVD) morbidity and mortality rates in African Americans compared to Caucasian Americans. Over the last decade, a series of randomized controlled trials (RCT) have been conducted by our National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine Center (NIH) and others to evaluate the effects of a select stress reduction approach, the Transcendental Meditation (TM) program, on CVD risk factors, morbidity and mortality in inner city African Americans. The TM program is a standardized, and widely practiced traditional meditation approach for stress reduction with high cross-cultural acceptability. These RCT's have reported significant improvements in psychosocial stress measures such as depression, reductions in hypertension and antihypertensive medications, left ventricular mass and regression of atherosclerosis in African Americans practicing TM compared to other forms of stress management and to controls.
A recent meta-analysis from two of these earlier RCTs with a nine year follow-up reported lower all-cause and CVD mortality rates among high risk subjects in the TM group including 62% hypertensive African Americans compared to other active mental and physical stress reduction approaches and health education or usual care controls. A review of these findings indicates that effective forms of meditation such as the TM program have significant public health implications for the prevention and treatment of CVD and improvement in quality of life in this minority population.
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Date: July 10-12, 2002
Location: Hilton Hotel & Towers, Washington, DC
Sponsor: U.S. Dept. of Health and Human Services, Office of Minority Health / Office of Public Health and Science
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