We may be able to add HIV to the list of health conditions positively affected by mindfulness meditation.
A small, randomly controlled, single-blind study run by David Creswell and colleagues at UCLA is about to be published in the journal Brain, Behavior and Immunity. It measured the decline of CD4+ T lymphocytes, immune system cells which typically decline as HIV progresses, in a group of 48 HIV-positive adults who were assigned randomly to either an 8-week Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction seminar programme or a 1-day stress reduction education seminar.
Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) was pioneered by John Kabat-Zinn and described in his book Full Catastrophe Living. It adapts traditional Buddhist meditation techniques to the purpose of stress reduction. Because it is a standardized programme, consisting of guided exercises in class and practice at home, it gives reproducibility to scientific studies performed with it. Included in the programme are body awareness, mindful stretching, sitting meditation, and mindfulness in daily life
practices. These are thought to make participants more able to deal effectively with stress through greater awareness.
Participants in the study were medically assessed before and after the treatment by doctors who were not aware whether the participants were in the treatment (meditation) or control group. Statistical methods were used to confirm that the groups were comparable and that other factors, such as the use of antiretroviral medications, were not responsible for the observed differences. The participants were screened beforehand, and those with an AIDS diagnosis, hepatitis, a psychiatric disorder, illicit drug use, infection, low levels of stress, or an existing mind-body practice were excluded.
What the research group found was that the meditation group were significantly less likely to have declined in their immune system status compared with the control group, and that there was a correlation between the number of classes attended and the strength of the effect.
This is a small study, and larger studies are needed to confirm that the effect exists, but because mindfulness meditation is a cheap intervention (you can teach it in a group, and no drugs or other expensive materials are involved), there is a reasonable likelihood that these studies will be done.
The intervention is also simple and, like other non-drug interventions, safe and without harmful side effects.
Technorati Tags: non-drug therapy, mindfulness, meditation, HIV, stress, immune system
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