靜坐的確能減少得心臟病的比率

中廣新聞網 (2009-11-17 17:37)

  News (Tuesday, 17 November 2009)

Meditation 'eases heart disease'

Heart patients saw a big risk reduction from practising meditation

Heart disease patients who practise Transcendental
Meditation have reduced death rates, US researchers
have said.

At a meeting of the American Heart Association they said they
had randomly assigned 201 African Americans to meditate or
to make lifestyle changes.

After nine years, the meditation group had a 47% reduction
in deaths, heart attacks and strokes.

The research was carried out by the Medical College of
Wisconsin with the Maharishi University in Iowa.

It was funded by a £2.3m grant from the National Institute of
Health and the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute.

'Significant benefits'

The African American men and women had an average age of
59 years and a narrowing of the arteries in their hearts.

The meditation group were asked to practise for 20 minutes
twice a day.

The lifestyle change group received education classes in
traditional risk factors, including dietary modification and
exercise.

Over nine years, there were 20 events (heart attacks, strokes
or death) in the meditation group and 31 in the health
education group.

Dr Robert Schneider, lead author and director of the Centre
for Natural Medicine and Prevention at the Maharishi University
in Iowa said:

"At the end of the 9 years, 80% of the meditation group were
still practising at least once a day.

"But there was very little change in the health education group.

"Their lifestyle was much the same in terms of diet and exercise
-- it's a very difficult thing to make those changes."

As well as the reductions in death, heart attacks and strokes
in the meditating group, their average blood pressure was
significantly lower (5mm Hg), and there was a significant
reduction in psychological stress in some participants.

Dr Schneider said other studies had shown the benefits of
Transcendental Meditation on blood pressure and stress,
irrespective of ethnicity.

"This is the first controlled clinical trial to show that long-term
practise of this particular stress reduction programme reduces
the incidence of clinical cardiovascular events, that is heart
attacks, strokes and mortality," he said.

Dr Schneider said that the effect of Transcendental Meditation
in the trial was like adding a class of newly discovered drugs
for the prevention of heart disease.

He said: "In this case, the new medications are derived from
the body's own internal pharmacy stimulated by the
Transcendental Meditation practice."

Ingrid Collins, a consultant educational psychologist at the
London Medical Centre, said: "I'm not at all surprised that a
change of behaviour like this can have enormous benefits
both emotionally and physically.

"Physical and emotional energy is on a continuum and
whatever happens to us physically can affect our emotions
and vice versa."

British Heart Foundation Cardiac Nurse Ellen Mason said:
"This is a fascinating area and the results were impressive.

"However, in order to fully assess the difference
transcendental meditation could have on heart patient's lives,
we need to see research confirming it in a far bigger study
and with other ethnic groups."

BBC 原新聞網址：http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/8363302.stm