Meditation improves wellbeing of cancer patients

Washington, Oct 14 : Transcendental Meditation (TM) reduces stress and improves wellbeing among women with breast cancer, according to a new study.

A total of 130 women with breast cancer, 55 years and older, participated in the two-year study at Saint Joseph Hospital.

The women were randomly assigned to either the TM technique or to a usual care control group. They were administered quality of life measures, including the Functional Assessment of Cancer Therapy-Breast (FACT-B), every six months for two years.

"The women in the study found their meditation practice easy to do at home and reported significant benefits in their overall quality of life," said Sanford Nidich, study co-author and senior researcher at the Institute for Natural Medicine and Prevention (INMP), Maharishi University of Management.

"Emotional and psycho-social stress contribute to the onset and progression of breast cancer and cancer mortality," added Nidich.

"Data from this well-designed clinical trial and related studies suggest that effective stress reduction with the Transcendental Meditation program may be useful in the prevention and treatment and of breast cancer and its deleterious consequences," said Robert Schneider, study co-author and director, INMP.

Women over 50 years have four times the incidence of breast cancer compared to women below 50, which remains a leading cause of death among them, according to the National Cancer Institute, said an INMP release.

The project was a collaboration between the Centre for Healthy Aging at Saint Joseph Hospital; the Institute for Health Services, Research and Policy Studies at Northwestern University; the department of psychology at Indiana State University and INMP.