Focus on Alternative and Complementary Therapies
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Focus Alternat Complement Ther©2005 Pharmaceutical Press
Focus Altern Complement Ther 2003; 8: 489
To systematically review randomised controlled trials of the cumulative effects of Transcendental Meditation (TM) for blood pressure.
Searches were made of electronic databases and the collected papers and official websites of the TM organisation. Only randomised controlled trials that measured the cumulative effects of TM on blood pressure were included. Trials that measured only acute effects of TM on blood pressure and trials in which TM was only one of several co-interventions were excluded.
Five randomised controlled trials met the inclusion criteria. Of these, one reported significant improvements in systolic blood pressure and two reported significant improvement in diastolic blood pressure. Only one of the trials reporting improvement in blood pressure used adequate procedures to establish baseline blood pressure values and its positive outcome is confounded by baseline differences in medication status between experimental and control groups. All of the trials were carried out by researchers closely involved with the TM organisation.
There is presently only weak evidence for a cumulative positive effect of TM on blood pressure and independent research in this area is much needed.
