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Usefulness of the transcendental meditation program in the treatment of patients with coronary artery disease.

J W Zamarra, Robert H Schneider, I Besseghini, D K Robinson, John Salerno

The American journal of cardiology April 15, 1996 DOI: 10.1016/s0002-9149(97)89184-9 (opens in new tab)

Study at a glance

AI-extracted from the abstract
Characteristics Randomized controlled trial Peer reviewed
Sample size 21
Population Patients with documented coronary artery disease
Intervention Transcendental Meditation program
Duration 8 months
Measures exercise tolerance testing, rate-pressure product
Topics Meditation
Key findings After 8 months, the Transcendental Meditation group showed a 14.7% increase in exercise tolerance, an 11.7% increase in maximal workload, an 18% delay in onset of ST-segment depression, and significant reductions in rate-pressure product at 3 and 6 minutes and at maximal exercise compared with the wait-list control.

Abstract

Twenty-one patients with documented coronary artery disease were tested at baseline by exercise tolerance testing, and assigned to either stress reduction using the Transcendental Meditation (TM) program or to a wait-list control, After 8 months, the TM group had a 14.7% increase in exercise tolerance, an 11.7% increase in maximal workload, an 18% delay in onset of ST-segment depression, and significant reductions in rate-pressure product at 3 and 6 minutes, and at maximal exercise compared with the control group.