Transcendental Meditation practitioners show reduced expression of the Conserved Transcriptional Response to Adversity.

Background And Objectives: A recent exploratory study of transcriptional effects of long-term practice of Transcendental Meditation (TM) technologies found evidence for altered expression of genes associated with health and disease. In the present secondary analysis of those data, we test the more specific hypothesis that this sample of long-term practitioners shows a significant reduction in markers of the "Conserved Transcriptional Response to Adversity" (CTRA), an RNA profile characterized by up-regulated inflammation and down-regulated Type I interferon (IFN) activity.

Materials And Methods: Data come from a previously published study providing genome-wide transcriptional profiles of peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC) from healthy, 38-year practitioners of TM technologies and matched controls ( = 12, mean age 65).

Transcriptomics of Long-Term Meditation Practice: Evidence for Prevention or Reversal of Stress Effects Harmful to Health.

Stress can overload adaptive mechanisms, leading to epigenetic effects harmful to health. Research on the reversal of these effects is in its infancy. Early results suggest some meditation techniques have health benefits that grow with repeated practice.