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A Week of Intense Meditation Caused Positive Changes to Immune System

Posted by Manuela Boyle on 27 January 2022
A Week of Intense Meditation Caused Positive Changes to Immune System

A 2022 University of Florida study found that meditation done at an intense level caused diverse positive changes in participants’ immune systems. The meditation experience studied was certainly intense: an 8-day retreat with 10-hour daily meditation sessions, all conducted in silence. Those retreat participants saw robust activation of their immune systems, with positive changes in 220 immune-related genes–but without activating inflammatory signals.

The positive impact of meditation on human well-being is well documented, yet its molecular mechanisms are incompletely understood. Researchers applied a comprehensive systems' biology approach starting with whole-blood gene expression profiling combined with multilevel bioinformatic analyses to characterise the coexpression, transcriptional, and protein–protein interaction networks to identify a meditation-specific core network after an advanced 8-d Inner Engineering retreat program. They found the response to oxidative stress, detoxification, and cell cycle regulation pathways were down-regulated after meditation. Strikingly, 220 genes directly associated with immune response, including 68 genes related to interferon signalling, were up-regulated, with no significant expression changes in the inflammatory genes. This robust meditation-specific immune response network is significantly dysregulated in many patients with cancer and other chronic diseases. The work provides a foundation for understanding the effect of meditation and suggests that meditation as a behavioural intervention can voluntarily and non=-pharmacologically improve the immune response for treating various conditions associated with excessive or persistent inflammation with a dampened immune system profile.

Reference:

Large-scale genomic study reveals robust activation of the immune system following advanced Inner Engineering meditation retreat
Vijayendran Chandran, Mei-Ling Bermúdez, Mert Koka, Brindha Chandran, Dhanashri Pawale, Ramana Vishnubhotla, Suresh Alankar, Raj Maturi, Balachundhar Subramaniam, Senthilkumar Sadhasivam
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Dec 2021, 118 (51) e2110455118; DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2110455118

Author:Manuela Boyle
Tags:NewsMind Body MedicineEvidence Based ResearchCancerCancer survivorsWhat's Next?

Associations

  • The Institute for Functional Medicine
  • Society for Integrative Oncology
  • Naturopaths and Herbalists Association of Australia
  • Australian Traditional-Medicine Society
  • British Naturopathic Association