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New insights into the value of Maharishi Vedic Medicine and Transcendental Meditation in the treatment of cardiovascular disease

Pathways Magazine, USA

3 November 2002

The following article was published in the Autumn issue of PATHWAYS MAGAZINE(USA), and also appears online at: www.healthnewsdigest.com/news/hlth_maharishi-7.html. HealthNewsDigest.com is part of an extensive health news network that also supplies stories to media around the world.

Pathways Magazine

Washington, D.C.

Fall Issue, 2002

 

MAHARISHI VEDIC MEDICINE

NIH-NCCAM Sponsored, Center for Natural Medicine and Prevention Director, Robert Schneider, M.D., Gives New Insights into Reversing Cardiovascular Disease With Maharishi Vedic Medicine

[NIH-NCCAM - refers to the US National Institutes of Health - National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine]

By Alexi Teraji and Mary Zeilbeck

As the baby boomers turn middle-aged, their threat for developing cardiovascular disease rises. Almost 70 million Americans suffer from some form of cardiovascular disease, and in 2002 it remains the number one cause of mortality in the U.S.—killing almost 2.4 million Americans each year.

What can be done to curb this epidemic? Modern medicine cannot even pinpoint the cause of cardiovascular disease, only its risk factors, let alone offer a cure. Many forms of alternative medicine offer hope for relief from symptoms with a variety of treatments, but no cure. Emerging from the National Institutes of Health’s NCCAM funded centers is one significant and scientific hope for preventing and even curing cardiovascular disease through Maharishi Vedic Medicine, which is being researched by University of Michigan trained medical scientist Robert Schneider, M.D.

Dr. Schneider is the Dean of the College of Maharishi Vedic Medicine, Maharishi University of Management in Fairfield, Iowa, and he has been researching the positive effects of this ancient medical science for the past 15 years. During this time, the Center for Natural Medicine and Prevention, the research branch of the College of Maharishi Vedic Medicine, has been awarded approximately $18 million of research grants from the US government and private foundations.

These studies have been conducted in collaboration with major academic medical centers in the United States, including West Oakland Health Center, University of Iowa College of Medicine, Medical College of Wisconsin, Charles R. Drew University of Health Sciences, Saint Joseph’s Hospital, Cedars Sinai Medical Center, Morehouse Medical College, Howard University School of Medicine, University of California-Irvine, University of Pennsylvania, and University of Hawaii.

"Fortunately for the health of all Americans, the ancient system of natural medicine called Maharishi Vedic Medicine has been recently rediscovered and revived with a modern scientific framework," says Dr. Schneider. "Maharishi Vedic Medicine is the most comprehensively researched and scientifically validated system of natural medicine available today. And it has the potential to prevent and even cure cardiovascular disease without harmful side effects."

When asked about the receptivity of the scientific community to his work, Dr. Schneider replied, "The findings from this research program have been published in leading, peer-reviewed medical journals. These include journals published by the American Heart Association, Hypertension, Stroke and Circulation as well as the American Journal of Cardiology, Psychosomatic Medicine, Behavioral Medicine, American Journal of Managed Care, International Journal of Neuroscience and others.

"Based on this and other research findings on Maharishi Vedic Medicine, my colleagues and I have been invited to brief the Prevention Coalition of the US Congress, members of the British Parliament’s House of Lords, and the President’s Commission on Complementary and Alternative Medicine.

"Several times a year, I am invited to address medical conferences and continuing education programs for physicians on the health benefits of Maharishi Vedic Medicine, especially for prevention and treatment of cardiovascular disease. Recent venues include the Johns Hopkins Medical Center, National Institutes of Health, American Osteopathic Association, Stanford University, University of California-Los Angeles, among others."

What is NIH-NCCAM?

The National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM) is the National Institutes of Health (NIH) agency for scientific research on complementary and alternative medicine. NIH, the federal government’s medical research agency, has 15 divisions; one of those divisions is NCCAM.

NCCAM’s mission is to explore complementary and alternative healing practices in the context of rigorous science, to train CAM researchers, and to inform the public and health professionals about the results of CAM research studies, and to this purpose, they have funded 16 national centers to study varying areas of treatment and disease.

With over $100,000,000 appropriated by Congress for NCCAM in 2002, the U.S. government is taking seriously the efficacy of alternative forms of medicine in areas ranging from addiction and arthritis, cancer and cardiovascular diseases, pediatric treatments, menopause and other women’s health issues, with twelve centers working in multi-modality fields, three devoted to botanical research and one to chiropractic research.

Founded in October, 1998, NIH-NCCAM funded 11 centers in 1998 and 1999, one of which is the Center for Natural Medicine and Prevention, headed by Robert Schneider, M.D., to study the effects of Maharishi Vedic Medicine on cardiovascular disease in highly at-risk minority populations, particularly African-Americans.

What is Maharishi Vedic Medicine?

Maharishi Vedic Medicine is a unique body of systematic and scientific knowledge that considers all levels of health—from the level of the mind, to the body, to the level of environment and to the most distant level of the cosmos. Maharishi Vedic Medicine connects all these levels of health to the inner intelligence of nature found at the basis of human physiology. The Transcendental Meditation ® technique (TM technique) is a principal modality of the Maharishi Vedic Medicine health care programs studied by Dr. Schneider and colleagues over the past three decades. A simple, natural mind/body technique that provides deep rest and relief from stress related disorders including cardiovascular disease and its risk factors such as hypertension, high cholesterol, diabetes, and obesity, it is nevertheless unique in the varying fields of meditation. The term meditation is usually thought of as concentration or contemplation, which does not provide the same effortless state of restful alertness documented physiologically in UCLA and Harvard studies on practitioners of the TM technique.

Accept No Substitute

Extensively documented over the past 30 years through hundreds of studies performed at leading medical and educational institutions around the world, the TM technique has been repeatedly shown to be a powerfully effective means to rid the mind and body of stress—one of the major risk factors for cardiovascular disease. Proponents of other techniques of meditation often quote these research studies, but it is only the TM technique that has been documented in these studies, and it is verifiably and repeatedly proven to be effective in mind, body, behavior and environmental improvement of a range of risk factors for cardiovascular disease, as well as many other areas of health.

Reversing Atherosclerosis with Maharishi Vedic Medicine

Atherosclerosis is the hardening of the arteries accompanied by the buildup of fat deposits, or plaque, in the artery walls. The condition is a major contributor to heart attack and stroke. The most recent studies led by Dr. Schneider are showing astounding success in the battle to reverse atherosclerosis. In 2000, a study published in Stroke, the journal of the American Heart Association, which was cited in publications and the media worldwide, found that the mind/body technique of TM alone, without any other interventions, reduces atherosclerosis and its accompanying risk of stroke and heart attack.

"In this three-year study, using ultrasound we measured the thickness of the walls in participants’ carotid arteries. These are the arteries that travel up your neck and carry oxygen to your brain," says Dr. Schneider. "In the TM group we found reductions in artery wall thickness comparable to those achieved by medications and intensive lifestyle modification programs. The reduction with the TM group was equal to an 11 percent reduction in the risk of heart attack and a 15 percent reduction in the risk of stroke."

This past year, another study reported in the April 15 issue of The American Journal of Cardiology (2002), found that older persons with multiple risk factors for cardiovascular disease might substantially reduce atherosclerosis through the multimodality treatment program of Maharishi Vedic Medicine.

In the study, 57 seniors with an average age of 74 were randomly assigned into three treatment groups: (1) a multimodality intervention of Maharishi Vedic Medicine involving diet, exercise, anti-oxidant herbal food supplements, and the TM technique; (2) health education involving standard recommendations in diet, exercise and a multivitamin supplement; and (3) usual care with no added intervention. Participants with multiple risk factors for coronary heart disease were also classified into a "high-risk" subgroup for each group.

The primary measurement used in the study was ultrasound assessment of carotid artery wall thickness. This is a noninvasive measure of atherosclerosis known to correlate with coronary heart disease and stroke.

Again the results surprised everyone who believes atherosclerosis to be irreversible. The ultrasound measurements in the Maharishi Vedic Medicine participants decreased 10.6 percent for the entire group and 19.4 percent for the high-risk subgroup. Eighty percent of subjects in the entire Maharishi Vedic Medicine group and 100 percent of subjects in the Maharishi Vedic Medicine high-risk subgroup showed regression in atherosclerosis.

Comparing high-risk subgroups, measurements decreased significantly more in the Maharishi Vedic Medicine subjects than in the health education or usual care subjects.

"The research supports targeting multiple risk factors as an effective approach to preventing heart attack and death from coronary heart disease," says Dr. Schneider. "However, unlike other non-drug approaches, the Maharishi Vedic Medicine treatment does not require radical changes in lifestyle. This represents a breakthrough in treatment of atherosclerosis because it not only suggests that a traditional, non-drug, natural medicine approach may regress cardiovascular disease, but that this program is one that ordinary people can do."

Research continues at the Center for Natural Medicine and Prevention in collaboration with research institutes in Atlanta, Chicago, Washington, D.C., L.A. and Orange County, Hawaii, and Iowa looking into the positive effects of Maharishi Vedic Medicine on reversing hypertension, atherosclerosis, and breast cancer.

For more information on NCCAM, see their website at www.nccam.nih.gov For more information on the research performed by Dr. Schneider, see the website of the Center for Natural Medicine and Prevention on the campus of Maharishi University of Management at www.mum.edu/CNMP