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 about atherosclerosis? It’s a serious condition associated with coronary heart disease. Can the Transcendental Meditation technique help prevent this debilitating condition?

Dr. Schneider: Heart attacks, angina and many kinds of stroke are caused by a condition called atherosclerosis, which is a kind of hardening or thickening of the arteries. The conventional treatments for atherosclerosis include drug treatments and heart or brain surgery. These surgeries include angioplasties or coronary artery bypass graft, which are some of the most common surgeries in the United States. Unfortunately, they don’t actually cure the disease, because even after opening up the blockage in one part of the artery, the rest of the arteries still have atherosclerosis. And the rates of recurrence are quite high after six months or a year.

However, there is one non-pharmacologic, mind-body intervention program that has shown to have a dramatic effect in preventing and regressing atherosclerosis: the Transcendental Meditation technique.

The first study on this topic was conducted at the State University of New York and Veterans Administration Medical Center in Buffalo and published in the American Journal of Cardiology. In this research study, individuals who already had coronary heart disease and were waiting for surgery were measured while they exercised on a bicycle. Then they practiced either the Transcendental Meditation program or a control program for one year, and were measured again while exercising on a bicycle at the end of the year.

As you can see in the orange bar in the research chart, above, those individuals practicing the Transcendental Meditation program had an increase in exercise duration, which showed that their heart was functioning better. They also demonstrated changes in ECG measures of myocardial ischemia, which is an important measure of coronary heart disease and atherosclerosis.

In another study, published in the American Heart Association’s journal Stroke, individuals who were at risk for atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease participated in the Transcendental Meditation program. (In the research chart, above, the Transcendental Meditation group is shown in the bar on the left, while the control conventional health education group is shown on the right.) Those practicing the Transcendental Meditation technique had a significant regression or opening up of the arteries over this one-year period as compared to controls. This research study was the first time that it was shown that a mind-body intervention could cause, in this dramatic way, regression of atherosclerosis in the arteries.

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