By John M. de Castro, Ph.D.
“Stress is immunosuppressive. Research into this pernicious relationship between stress and disease has piqued interest in the ways that contemplative practices might positively influence the immune system. According to a large body of evidence, meditation appears to have profound effects on immune function in health and disease because of its ability to reduce stress.” – David Vago
Contemplative practices have been found to improve the physical and psychological well-being of practitioners and to relieve the symptoms of a large number of mental and physical diseases. How these practices might have such widespread benefits is not precisely known. In fact, there may not be one mechanism but many. One important benefit of mindfulness practices appears to be a strengthening of the immune system, the body’s primary defense against disease. Through a series of steps called the immune response, this system attacks organisms and substances that invade body systems and cause disease. It is important that it be properly tuned as too weak of an immune response can allow diseases to develop while too strong of a response can result in autoimmune diseases.
In today’s Research News article “Mindfulness meditation and the immune system: a systematic review of randomized controlled trials.” See:
or see summary below. Black and Slavich review the published research literature on the effects of mindfulness meditation on immune system function. They found and summarized twenty randomized controlled studies that administered mindfulness meditation and measured objective biomarkers of immune system activity, usually in the blood. All but three of the studies used a Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) or similar programs. MBSR includes a combination of meditation, body scan, and yoga practices. They found the published research reported that mindfulness meditation produced a reduction in biomarkers of inflammation including cellular transcription factor NF-κB and liver-derived C-reactive protein, CRP, and increases in cell-mediated immunity, CD4+ T cell count, and increases in telomerase activity indicating decreased biological aging.
These are remarkable findings suggesting that mindfulness meditation practice improves immune system function and reduces the processes of cellular aging. The reduction in the inflammatory response is significant as the inflammatory response which works quite well for short-term infections and injuries can, if protracted, itself become a threat to health, producing autoimmune diseases. Indeed, chronic inflammation is associated with reduced longevity. The improvements in cellular immunity suggest that meditation practice improves the ability of the body to fend off disease by destroying cells that have been infected, an important protection against the spread of disease through the body. Finally, the findings that mindfulness meditation practices increase telomerase activity is very exciting. The telomere is attached to the ends of the DNA molecule. As we age the telomere shortens, resulting in difficulty with cells reproducing, producing more defective cells. The enzyme telomerase helps to prevent shortening of the telomere and thereby slow the aging process. It appears that mindfulness meditation increases telomerase activity and thereby slow the aging process.
Hence, accumulating scientific evidence suggests that mindfulness meditation has very positive effects on the immune system which improve health and longevity. It is not known exactly how these practices do this, but it is likely that the ability of mindfulness meditation to reduce the physical and psychological responses to stress is responsible. Chronic stress is known to impair immune system function, so its reduction may be responsible to the improved function of this system. Regardless of the mechanism, it is clear that mindfulness meditation is good for health, improving the systems that help to maintain it.
Strengthen the immune system with mindfulness.
“We still don’t know the precise mechanism by which control of attention or meditation acts this way on the immune system. It’s likely that a more “distant” and serene outlook, which is common during periods of meditation (and also between meditation sessions) gives rise to a weaker secretion of adrenaline and cortisol, and that this allows the immune cells to remain more active.” – David Servan-Schreiber
CMCS – Center for Mindfulness and Contemplative Studies
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Study Summary
Black, D. S. and Slavich, G. M. (2016), Mindfulness meditation and the immune system: a systematic review of randomized controlled trials. Ann. N.Y. Acad. Sci., 1373: 13–24.
Abstract
Mindfulness meditation represents a mental training framework for cultivating the state of mindful awareness in daily life. Recently, there has been a surge of interest in how mindfulness meditation improves human health and well-being. Although studies have shown that mindfulness meditation can improve self-reported measures of disease symptomatology, the effect that mindfulness meditation has on biological mechanisms underlying human aging and disease is less clear. To address this issue, we conducted the first comprehensive review of randomized controlled trials examining the effects of mindfulness meditation on immune system parameters, with a specific focus on five outcomes: (1) circulating and stimulated inflammatory proteins, (2) cellular transcription factors and gene expression, (3) immune cell count, (4) immune cell aging, and (5) antibody response. This analysis revealed substantial heterogeneity across studies with respect to patient population, study design, and assay procedures. The findings suggest possible effects of mindfulness meditation on specific markers of inflammation, cell-mediated immunity, and biological aging, but these results are tentative and require further replication. On the basis of this analysis, we describe the limitations of existing work and suggest possible avenues for future research. Mindfulness meditation may be salutogenic for immune system dynamics, but additional work is needed to examine these effects.