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Meditation, Yoga Might Switch Off Stress Genes
HealthDay Reporter
Wednesday, July 2, 2008; 12:00 AM
WEDNESDAY, July 2 (HealthDay News) -- Researchers say they've taken a
significant stride forward in understanding how relaxation techniques
such as meditation, prayer and yoga improve health: by changing
patterns of gene activity that affect how the body responds to stress.
The changes were seen both in long-term practitioners and in newer recruits, the scientists said.
"It's
not all in your head," said Dr. Herbert Benson, president emeritus of
the Benson-Henry Institute for Mind/Body Medicine at Massachusetts
General Hospital and an associate professor of medicine at Harvard
Medical School. "What we have found is that when you evoke the
relaxation response, the very genes that are turned on or off by stress
are turned the other way. The mind can actively turn on and turn off
genes. The mind is not separated from the body."
One outside expert agreed.
"It's
sort of like reverse thinking: If you can wreak havoc on yourself with
lifestyle choices, for example, [in a way that] causes expression of
latent genetic manifestations in the negative, then the reverse should
hold true," said Dr. Gerry Leisman, director of the F.R. Carrick
Institute for Clinical Ergonomics, Rehabilitation and Applied
Neuroscience at Leeds Metropolitan University in the U.K.
"Biology
is not entirely our destiny, so while there are things that give us
risk factors, there's a lot of 'wiggle' in this," added Leisman, who is
also a professor at the University of Haifa in Israel. "This paper is
pointing that there is a technique that allows us to play with the
wiggle."
Benson, a pioneer in the field of mind-body medicine,
is co-senior author of the new study, which is published in the
journalPLoS One.
Benson first described the relaxation response
35 years ago. Mind-body approaches that elicit the response include
meditation, repetitive prayer, yoga, tai chi, breathing exercises,
progressive muscle relaxation, biofeedback, guided imagery and Qi Gong.
"Previously, we had noted that there were scores of diseases
that could be treated by eliciting the relaxation response --
everything from different kinds of pain, infertility, rheumatoid
arthritis, insomnia," Benson said.
He believes that this study
is the first comprehensive look at how mind states can affect gene
expression. It also focuses on gene activity in healthy individuals.
Benson
and his colleagues compared gene-expression patterns in 19 long-term
practitioners, 19 healthy controls and 20 newcomers who underwent eight
weeks of relaxation-response training.
More than 2,200 genes
were activated differently in the long-time practitioners relative to
the controls and 1,561 genes in the short-timers compared to the
long-time practitioners. Some 433 of the differently activated genes
were shared among short-term and long-term practitioners.
Further genetic analysis revealed changes in cellular metabolism,
response to oxidative stress and other processes in both short- and
long-term practitioners. All of these processes may contribute to
cellular damage stemming from chronic stress.
Another expert had a mixed response to the findings.
Robert
Schwartz, director of the Texas A&M Health Science Center's
Institute of Biosciences and Technology in Houston, noted that the
study was relatively small. He also wished that there had been more
data on the levels of stress hormones within the control group, for
comparison purposes.
However, Schwartz called the study "unique
and very exciting. It demonstrates that all these techniques of
relaxation response have a biofeedback mechanism that alters gene
expression."
He pointed out that the researchers looked at
blood cells, which consist largely of immune cells. "You're getting the
response most probably in the immune cell population," Schwartz said.
"We
all are under stress and have many manifestations of that stress,"
Benson added. "To adequately protect ourselves against stress, we
should use an approach and a technique that we believe evokes the
relaxation response 20 minutes, once a day."
More information
There's more on meditation at the U.S. National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine.
SOURCES:
Herbert Benson, M.D., president emeritus, Benson-Henry Institute for
Mind/Body Medicine, Massachusetts General Hospital, and associate
professor of medicine, Harvard Medical School, Cambridge, Mass.; Gerry
Leisman, M.D., Ph.D., director, F.R. Carrick Institute for Clinical
Ergonomics, Rehabilitation and Applied Neuroscience and professor,
neuroscience, Leeds Metropolitan University, U.K. and professor,
University of Haifa, Israel; Robert Schwartz, Ph.D., director, Texas
A&M Health Science Center Institute of Biosciences and Technology,
Houston;PLoS One