Meditation for HIV Patients

Image via WikipediaMindfulness meditation in medicine: I have written previously (here) about early evidence indicating that meditation can decrease the inflammatory response in the body, which in turn can have a major impact on prevention of disease, and also on reduction of symptoms in chronic diseases. A recent application of the use of meditation in medicine involves patients who are HIV positive. Findings from a study conducted by researchers at UCLA are summarized as follows:

Researchers at UCLA report that the practice of mindfulness meditation stopped the decline of CD4 T cells in HIV-positive patients suffering from stress, slowing the progression of the disease. The study was just released in the online edition of the journal Brain, Behavior, and Immunity.

Mindfulness meditation is the practice of bringing an open and receptive awareness of the present moment to experiences, avoiding thinking of the past or worrying about the future. It is thought to reduce stress and improve health outcomes in a variety of patient populations.

"This study provides the first indication that mindfulness meditation stress-management training can have a direct impact on slowing HIV disease progression," said lead study author David Creswell, a research scientist at the Cousins Center for Psychoneuroimmunology at UCLA.

I actually got to hear about this study, from one of the researchers involved in the work, back in April at the Research Conference sponsored by the Center For Mindfulness (CFM) at U. Mass. It was one of a very impressive array of recent research projects, using highly sophisticated designs, that are beginning to provide very solid scientific evidence that mindfulness meditation benefits the human mind/brain/body in ways that we might never have anticipated. I think we can expect to see more and more mainstream health providers who use, teach, and promote meditation with their patients, and with very good results. Maybe we can cut down on our over-reliance on the pharmaceutical industry for our health care needs???

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