Meditation Slows AIDS & Effects Your Genes

Interestingly this article on American research onto the effect of meditation on the AIDS virus shows up in the Times of India

Meditation may slow the worsening of AIDS in just a few weeks, perhaps by affecting the immune system, US researchers reported.

If the findings are borne out in larger studies, it could offer a cheap and pleasant way to help people battle the incurable and often fatal condition, the team at the University of California Los Angeles said on Thursday.

They tested a stress-lowering program called mindfulness meditation, defined as practicing an open and receptive awareness of the present moment, avoiding thinking of the past or worrying about the future. The more often the volunteers meditated, the higher their CD4 T-cell counts – a standard measure of how well the immune system is fighting the AIDS virus. The CD4 counts were measured before and after the two-month programme.

"This study provides the first indication that mindfulness meditation stress-management training can have a direct impact on slowing HIV disease progression," said David Creswell, who led the study.

His team tested 67 HIV-positive adults from the Los Angeles area, 48 of whom did some or all of the meditation. Most were likely to have highly stressful lives, Creswell said.

Read the whole article here

While the Huffington post carries this interesting interview with Dr Susan Smalley a geneticist and founder of the Mindful Awareness Research Center (MARC) at UCLA in which she speaks about the formation of MARC and it’s work. Below are selected extracts.

PF: What are some of the goals and visions for MARC?

SS: Our primary goal is education and research.

Our center is committed to teach practices that are secular and have empiric scientific research backing their wellness benefits and to teach them by well qualified people.

I’m sure we will add other methods that enhance mindfulness, like various other forms of meditation (in addition to mindfulness meditation) as well as some forms of yoga and even self-hypnosis.

We want to offer a host of different kinds of practices, all with scientific support, well-trained instructors, and taught in a secular fashion.

PF: What are some interesting areas of research for mindfulness?

Mike Irwin’s group is doing a lot of research on the neurobiology and the immune changes associated with mindfulness. They’ve written several interesting papers on the topic. A recent study by David Creswell, a research scientist who worked in Mike Irwin’s group, used a self-report questionnaire that measures how mindful you are – as a trait in the population.

Then they studied brain function and its relationship to these mindfulness scores – how do people that are very highly mindful vs. not so mindful differ in brain function?

They used an fMRI scan (functional magnetic resonance imaging) during what is called an affect labeling task. So they had people do this task where they have to label someone’s emotional expression (e.g. fearful or surprised). There are certain parts of the brain that are known to be involved in doing that task, particularly the prefrontal cortex modulating the emotional center which is the amygdala. When they did this study they found that the more mindful people were, the more activity in the frontal cortex quieting down the emotional center.

In other studies, mindfulness is shown to change brain activity and even structure with practice. For example, Sara Lazar’s research found that the structure of parts of the brain differed in long-time meditators compared to non-meditators. There are now many studies supporting brain changes with various sorts of meditation, including mindfulness meditation. 

Read the full interview text here

 

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