National Institutes
American Medical Association Research on TM technique reported in AMA journal 
American Psychological Association Conference presentations on the TM technique 
American College of Cardiology Symposium highlights TM research | Metabolic Syndrome | 6 May 2008 |
| The Transcendental Meditation Technique and Metabolic Syndrome by Dr. Schneider | |
Dr. Robert Schneider, M.D., F.A.C.C., F.A.B.M.R., is an NIH-funded medical researcher and author of Total Heart Health: How to Prevent and Reverse Heart Disease with the Maharishi Vedic Approach to Health (Basic Health Publications, 2006). Here he answers questions on cardiovascular disease and its risk factors.
Q: What is the role of metabolic syndrome in creating heart disease?
Dr. Schneider: Metabolic syndrome is a new term used by doctors to describe a cluster of risk factors, found in at least a third of the population, which indicate a very high risk for heart disease and diabetes. Metabolic syndrome is characterized by obesity—which afflicts two-thirds of the American population—as well as abnormal cholesterol or lipid levels, high blood pressure, and a predisposition towards diabetes.
Q: Can this syndrome be treated?
Dr. Schneider: It’s actually very difficult in many cases to reduce metabolic syndrome, because it usually requires either drug treatment or radical changes in lifestyle. However, recent research published in the Archives of Internal Medicine, a journal of the American Medical Association, has shown that the practice of the Transcendental Meditation technique reduces key factors of metabolic syndrome. It reduces blood pressure and it reduces a core component of metabolic syndrome called insulin resistance, which is thought to lead to high blood pressure, is related to obesity, abnormal lipids in the blood and diabetes. So this research showing reductions in insulin resistance, which is a pre-diabetic component, and a reduction in other components of the metabolic syndrome is very significant in preventing heart disease in the two-thirds of the American population who are obese or otherwise have metabolic syndrome.
Paul-Labrador M, Polk D, Dwyer JH, Velasquez I, Nidich SI, Rainforth M, Schneider RH, Bairey Merz CN. Effects of a randomized controlled trial of Transcendental Meditation on components of the metabolic syndrome in subjects with coronary heart disease. Archives of Internal Medicine, 166:1218-1224, 2006.
