--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Dick Mays <dickmays@...> wrote: > > The American Heart Association Recommends TM for Hypertension > (Published online April 22, 2013)
Interesting, but when you read the article: http://newsroom.heart.org/news/alternative-therapies-may-help-lower-blood-pressure You realise there is more to it than meets the eye. Exercise is a better way of reducing blood pressure for instance. As is slow breathing. And it isn't really "beyond" medication and diet as they recommend alternative therapies don't replace standard treatment. Still, if you've got to crow about which technique is best they do recommend TM above other types of meditation, but it isn't as good as isometric hand grip exercises. I dunno, the press release doesn't look so good to me now.... > Beyond Medications and Diet: Alternative Approaches to Lowering Blood Pressure > A Scientific Statement from the American Heart Association > > An estimated 29% of American adults suffer from hypertension and it is > projected to affect >1.5 billion people by 2025. It accounts for 13.5% of all > deaths and half of all strokes and ischemic heart disease. The global > hypertension-related public health burden is enormous. > > The American Heart Association just published a scientific statement on > alternative approaches to reducing blood pressure, which included a critical > evaluation of research on meditation techniques, including the Transcendental > Meditation technique (TM). Here is what the AHA's statement said about the TM > technique and other meditation practices: > "TM may be considered in clinical practice to lower BP. > Because of many negative studies or mixed results and a paucity of available > trials, all other meditation techniques (including MBSR [Mindfulness-Based > Stress Reduction]) received a Class III, no benefit, Level of Evidence C > recommendation . > Thus, other meditation techniques are not recommended in clinical practice to > lower BP at this time." > Here is a link to the full report: > http://hyper.ahajournals.org/content/early/2013/04/22/HYP.0b013e318293645f.full.pdf+html?sid=0aea85a1-f240-4b68-8174-07ecc3e2cfec > > > The following is a take on the AHA's statement by Dr. Robert Schneider, M.D., > leading researcher on the effects of TM on hypertension: > > While the AHA statement is conservative, they and other official medical > councils generally are, especially with vanguard therapies. However, the fact > that the AHA statement concluded that only Transcendental Meditation is > effective in lowering BP and that other meditation and relaxation techniques > are neither effective nor recommended is major. In addition, the AHA > statement reports that long-term T M practice leads to lower heart disease > clinical events. This was also not found for any other behavioral > intervention. > > Finally, it is noteworthy that this is the first time in 50 years of teaching > and researching Transcendental Meditation that it has been recognized and > recommended by a national medical organization that provides professional > practice guidelines to physicians, health care payers and policy makers. This > type of guideline statement has been what insurance companies have been > requesting from us for many years. > > For these reasons, this week's Scientific Statement from the American Heart > Association may be considered historic. >
