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Medical professionals are becoming increasingly interested in the use of meditation to treat and prevent cardiovascular disease.
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by Maharishi University of Management, Fairfield, Iowa, USA, The Review
22 December 2017
The Transcendental Meditation technique has been shown to increase blood flow in the hearts of subjects recovering from a heart attack according to a new study led by Robert Schneider, MD, FACC, dean of Maharishi University of Management's College of Integrative Medicine.
The study was conducted in collaboration with physicians at Columbia Presbyterian Hospital in New York.
Dr. Schneider presented the results of this pilot study last week at the annual meeting of the American Heart Association in Anaheim, California.
"Decreased blood flow to the heart is the main problem in a heart attack, so rehabilitation focuses on increasing that flow," Dr. Schneider said. "We showed that when Transcendental Meditation is added to cardiac rehabilitation, that's most effective for recovery."
Medical professionals are becoming increasingly interested in the use of meditation to treat and prevent cardiovascular disease, and earlier this month Dr. Schneider was invited to speak to cardiovascular specialists at the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics.
"The University of Iowa Medical Center was one of the pioneers of the brain-heart connection, and they were very impressed with the extensive data I presented from the studies on Transcendental Meditation we've done over the past 30 years," Dr. Schneider said.
Those studies have looked at many different cardiovascular risk conditions, such as blood pressure, atherosclerosis, heart rate variability, left ventricular hypertrophy, cholesterol, and insulin resistance.
In October Dr. Schneider was invited to speak to physicians and researchers at the University of California – Los Angeles, the University of California – San Diego, Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles, and the Los Angeles Veterans Administration.
As some alternative approaches are increasingly becoming evidence-based, physicians are eager to learn about these new breakthroughs in medical care, Dr. Schneider said. He spoke on heart disease, Maharishi AyurVeda, and aging, and summarized the recent statement by the American Heart Association.
"They were eager to learn about it from someone who did a lot of the original research covered by the recent AHA statement," Dr. Schneider said. "And because I have clinical experience, I was also able to tell them how to apply this knowledge in their clinical practice."
© Copyright 2017 Maharishi University of Management
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