The Association Between a History of Prior Experience with Meditation and the Prevalence of Chronic Health Conditions: Evidence from the 2012 NHIS.
Digital Archive @ GSU May 17, 2022 DOI: 10.57709/9458630 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Secondary analysis of cross-sectional survey data Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Population | Adults responding to the 2012 National Health Interview Survey |
| Topics | Meditation |
| Key findings | Ever having meditated was not associated with hypertension, was positively associated with high cholesterol (weighted OR 1.27; unweighted OR 1.23), and showed a negative association with BMI across all models. Diabetes was not associated in the weighted model but was negatively associated in the unweighted model (OR 0.81). |
Abstract
The use of Complementary and Alternative Medicine (CAM) has grown in popularity since the 1990’s. One possible explanation is the Western medicine’s inability to adequately treat pain and chronic diseases. Hypertension, high cholesterol, diabetes and obesity each pose significant public health challenges, and effective treatment requires lifestyle modification. Meditation, by attenuating the body’s stress response, may positively impact a wide range of chronic health concerns. However, research on meditation has been mixed and is often criticized for methodological shortcomings. The National Health Interview Survey (NHIS) most recently included questions about CAM in 2012. NHIS-based research describes differences in both CAM utilization and the prevalence of chronic health outcomes by region. We conducted a secondary analysis of the 2012 NHIS data to test our hypothesis of a negative association between ever having meditated and select chronic health outcomes. Due to software limitations we conducted separate analyses to account for the complex sampling and multilevel data structure with clustering of observations by region. Hypertension and meditation were not associated in the weighted logistic (OR=1.05 (95%CI= (0.91, 1.22)] or the unweighted marginal (OR=1.00 95%CI= (0.85, 1.18)] adjusted models. High cholesterol was positively associated with ever having meditated in both the weighted logistic (OR=1.27, 95%CI= (1.11, 1.46)] and unweighted marginal (OR=1.23, 95%CI= (1.17, 1.28)] adjusted models. Diabetes was not associated with ever having meditated in the weighted adjusted logistic model (OR=0.81, 95%CI= (0.62, 1.07)]. However, a negative association with meditation was found in the unweighted adjusted marginal (OR=0.81, 95%CI= (0.70, 0.95)] model. The association of meditation with BMI was negative in all models.
Comparable studies
Other cross-sectional and survey studies on meditation, most cited first.
| Study | Year | Design | Participants |
|---|---|---|---|
| Construct Validity of the Five Facet Mindfulness Questionnaire in Meditating and Nonmeditating Samples Experienced meditators and nonmeditating comparison groups | 2008 | Cross-sectional study | |
| Neural Correlates of Dispositional Mindfulness During Affect Labeling Adult participants | 2007 | Observational cross-sectional | n = 27 |
| Assessing mindfulness in children and adolescents: Development and validation of the Child and Adolescent Mindfulness Measure (CAMM). School-aged children and adolescents | 2011 | Cross-sectional validation study | n = 1,413 |
| Mindfulness and self-compassion as predictors of psychological wellbeing in long-term meditators and matched nonmeditators Experienced meditators and demographically matched nonmeditators | 2012 | Cross-sectional study | n = 152 |
| Mechanisms of Action in the Inverse Relationship Between Mindfulness and Psychological Distress Undergraduates | 2008 | Cross-sectional, correlational |
Citations in the library
Cites 4
- Effects of a Randomized Controlled Trial of Transcendental Meditation on Components of the Metabolic Syndrome in Subjects With Coronary Heart Disease Archives of Internal Medicine June 12, 2006
- Meditation for posttraumatic stress: Systematic review and meta-analysis. Psychological Trauma: Theory, Research, Practice and Policy July 1, 2017
- Prevalence, patterns, and predictors of meditation use among US adults: A nationally representative survey. Scientific Reports November 10, 2016
- Mindfulness-based stress reduction program in coronary heart disease: A randomized control trial International Journal of Yoga August 26, 2015