New study claims Transcendental Meditation 'cuts risk of heart attack by half'

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/6581495/Meditation-cuts-risk-of-heart-attack-by-half.html

by blazamos • 17 years ago

15 11 17 years ago

telegraph.co.uk

blazamos• 17 years ago

Saw a link to the article on Dan Benjamin's Hivelogic and was wondering what you guys think.

The allegedly biased Wikipedia-cited scientific research:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transcendental_Meditation#Scien...

The article from Skeptic's Dictionary:

http://skepdic.com/tm.html

MetaFilter thread on whether or not it's worth the $2500:

http://ask.metafilter.com/22579/Is-it-worth-2500-to-learn-Tr...

anigbrowl• 17 years ago

Bear in mind we're talking about the Telegraph here...they're just as likely to publish an op-ed tomorrow dismissing yoga as an effete liberal pursuit and bemoaning the difficulty of obtaining a traditional English steak and kidney pie or Yorkshire pudding, an edible form of kryptonite.

GiraffeNecktie• 17 years ago

The WP article is a completely whitewashed history of the organization, clearly edited by TM people. The organization has a loooooooong history of making dubious claims based mostly on research performed by its own people. http://www.aaskolnick.com/naswmav.htm Even when their research has been refuted by numerous other studies, they'll continue to quote it, as if it were still valid. What's worse is that they've gone to great pains to hide the serious side effects of TM. http://www.suggestibility.org/

nandemo• 17 years ago

Over nine years, 201 African American people with an average age of 59 and who had all been diagnosed with heart disease were randomly assigned to either Transcendental Meditation or health education classes about diet and exercise.

Where's the control group? Classes about diet and exercise can be rather stressful to overweight people...

trapper• 17 years ago

Where's your research to prove your assertion? The consensus in the field is that health education classes about diet and exercise have positive benefits, which is backed up in the literature.

So, this study really compared against best practice. I don't see the problem. Comparing a new treatment against best practice is ethical when you are dealing with people's lives.

nova• 17 years ago

And they will probably teach about the evil, evil meat and fats and say nothing about fructose and other carbohydrates...

tokenadult• 17 years ago

"Warning Signs in Experimental Design and Interpretation"

http://norvig.com/experiment-design.html

foldr• 17 years ago

What?

Are you suggesting that the researchers made one of these errors?

rms2• 17 years ago

If you're considering a type of meditation, I suspect the consensus of Hacker News meditators is for Vipassana meditation. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=587032 The book is free. http://mail.saigon.com/~anson/ebud/mfneng/mind0.htm

richcollins• 17 years ago

Why would you suspect that Hacker News readers would be most interested in a meditation technique that is heavily grounded in metaphysics?

rms2• 17 years ago

Because it can be done as a technique while ignoring all of the voodoo-mumbo-jumbo. The book linked doesn't discuss the metaphysics. Just watch your breath, then be aware of all of the sensations in your body. Personally I find the metaphysics rather cute.

For empirical evidence, I linked to a popular thread where few people had negative things to say about Vipassana. Of the people that suggested alternative meditation styles, one was modded to 3 points and one was at 1 points.

New study claims Transcendental Meditation 'cuts risk of heart attack by half'

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