Health fads die hard.
For example, while I enjoy eating all kinds of things (chocolate, yum), I can’t help giving myself little pats on the back for leaning towards foods with fiber and nutrients and steering clear of saturated fat and sugar. So you can imagine my disappointment when I read, “An Apple a Day, and Other Myths” in the NY Times (April 22, 2014). It seems that cancer experts have tossed in the towel when it comes to using diet to lower cancer risk.
So what does this mean about meditation? I’m not a “promiser” when it comes to talking about the benefits of meditation, but I’m not above giving myself a pat on the back for finding time to meditate and I certainly feel like meditation has changed my life. So what should I make of a recent study in JAMA Internal Medicine, “Meditation Programs for Psychological Stress and Well-being: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis”? According to the authors, who said they examined over 18,000 studies on the effects of meditation, there is only
“low evidence of improved stress/distress and mental health–related quality of life. We found low evidence of no effect or insufficient evidence of any effect of meditation programs on positive mood, attention, substance use, eating habits, sleep, and weight. We found no evidence that meditation programs were better than any active treatment (ie, drugs, exercise, and other behavioral therapies).”
Wow. I guess this could be good news in one respect: I really don’t need to look for a reason to meditate. Instead of filling my mind with little strokes about how good I am and how important it is to meditate, I can just sit and notice what is going on. That can be enough.
But for those who insist on finding a silver lining, there’s reason to believe that the JAMA article isn’t the last word on this topic. After looking at 18,000+ studies, the authors based their conclusions on only 47 studies because only those 47 studies met the procedural criteria that the authors had established at the outset of their review.
For more thoughts on the JAMA study and the current state-of-the-art science on meditation and its benefits, check out Tricycle magazine’s interview with Brown University scientist/meditator, Prof. Willoughby Britton (Meditation Nation, Tricycle blog, April 25).
Which brings me back to the ‘apple a day’ problem. Although its true that doctors haven’t found a reliable link between diet and cancer, they still say a proper diet is beneficial for avoiding obesity, heart disease, and certain forms of diabetes. So an apple a day makes sense. And, for me, so does meditation.