News about health and medicine

Research study

Meditation may have long-term benefits

Practicing Transcendental Meditation — a technique involving intense breathing exercises and the repetition of words, or "mantras" — may have benefits beyond stress reduction. It might actually help you live longer.

Researchers at five universities and medical centers including the Medical College of Georgia and the University of Iowa Carver College of Medicine tracked 202 patients with high blood pressure for up to 18 years.

They found that participants who used Transcendental Meditation twice a day for 20 minutes had a 23 percent lower death rate from all causes and nearly a third lower death rate from heart disease than those who did not practice the form of meditation.

"This paints a strong picture of how (Transcendental Meditation) can restore the body and promote better health in the long term," said Dr. Robert Schneider, the principal author of the study. He's also the director of the Institute for Natural Medicine and Prevention at Maharishi University of Management in Fairfield, Iowa.

Researchers can't say for sure how meditation lowers death rates, but studies have shown meditation can reduce risk factors associated with heart diseases and other chronic illnesses.

The small study, funded by the National Institutes of Health, was published May 2 in the American Journal of Cardiology.

Shivering proposition

Cold-water swimmers have bigger appetites

Taking a swim in cold water may be invigorating, but it could increase appetite enough to cause weight gain, researchers say.

The study may help explain why it is more difficult for some people to lose weight by swimming than with other exercise.

A University of Florida team tested how many calories were burned by 11 volunteers while exercising in warm water and in cold water. They ate 44 percent more calories after exercise in cold water than in warm water, the researchers found.

"It's possible that individuals who exercise in cooler water may have an exaggerated energy intake following exercise, which may be a reason why they don't lose as much weight," said Lesley White of the College of Health and Human Performance, who led the study.

The study ran in the International Journal of Sport Nutrition and Exercise Metabolism.

Lingering effects of 9/11

Have moms passed stress to offspring?

Pregnant women who were traumatized by witnessing the Sept. 11 attacks on the World Trade Center may have passed on a biological sign of stress to their unborn babies, scientists say.

Researchers found the women and their babies had reduced levels of the stress hormone cortisol, which is a sign someone has been affected by post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

The study suggests that a mother can pass on low cortisol levels to her unborn child, researchers at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York and the University of Edinburgh in Scotland said.

"This shows that exposure to severe stress in pregnancy is associated not only with PTSD in the mothers but also with the biologic marker of it — low hormone levels in the saliva — in the offspring long before they could have been listening to tales," said professor Jonathan Seckl of the University of Edinburgh.

Seckl said it was too early to tell if the children would suffer any ill effects.

In a study of 38 pregnant women Seckl and Dr. Rachel Yehuda, of Mount Sinai School of Medicine, found lower than normal levels of cortisol in saliva samples from the women who suffered PTSD linked to the 9/11 attacks, and in their infants.

The mothers and their babies had lower levels of the hormone than women who did not develop PTSD following the tragedy. Even a year after the children's births, babies of stressed mothers had lower levels than other children.

The study ran in The Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism.

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