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New study claims Transcendental Meditation 'cuts risk of heart attack by half'

15 points by blazamos 17y ago

blazamos 17y ago
Saw a link to the article on Dan Benjamin's Hivelogic and was wondering what you guys think. The allegedly biased Wikipedia-cited scientific research: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transcendental_Meditation#Scientific_research http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transcendental_Meditation#Scien... The article from Skeptic's Dictionary: http://skepdic.com/tm.html http://skepdic.com/tm.html MetaFilter thread on whether or not it's worth the $2500: http://ask.metafilter.com/22579/Is-it-worth-2500-to-learn-Transcendental-Meditation http://ask.metafilter.com/22579/Is-it-worth-2500-to-learn-Tr...
- anigbrowl 17y ago
  Bear in mind we're talking about the Telegraph here...they're just as likely to publish an op-ed tomorrow dismissing yoga as an effete liberal pursuit and bemoaning the difficulty of obtaining a traditional English steak and kidney pie or Yorkshire pudding, an edible form of kryptonite.
- GiraffeNecktie 17y ago
  The WP article is a completely whitewashed history of the organization, clearly edited by TM people. The organization has a loooooooong history of making dubious claims based mostly on research performed by its own people. http://www.aaskolnick.com/naswmav.htm http://www.aaskolnick.com/naswmav.htm Even when their research has been refuted by numerous other studies, they'll continue to quote it, as if it were still valid. What's worse is that they've gone to great pains to hide the serious side effects of TM. http://www.suggestibility.org/ http://www.suggestibility.org/
  - apallo 17y ago
    Wow thank you for that suggestibility.org link. After reading the telegraph article I googled it, read a bit of the wikipedia page, and then read a few reviews on amazon about TM that said "great book, but the personal lessons are where it's really at." Pretty soon I was on the actual TM website. To my knowledge I have never fallen so blatantly for something; I mean I almost checked out what their prices are. That is just plain embarrassing. I can't remember the last time I fell for something like that. What can I say; as much as I hate some of the stupid stuff that's posted on ycombinator I think most people here are bit more scientific and logical than I fully appreciate.
nandemo 17y ago
Over nine years, 201 African American people with an average age of 59 and who had all been diagnosed with heart disease were randomly assigned to either Transcendental Meditation or health education classes about diet and exercise. Where's the control group? Classes about diet and exercise can be rather stressful to overweight people...
- deleted 17y ago
  [deleted]
- trapper 17y ago
  Where's your research to prove your assertion? The consensus in the field is that health education classes about diet and exercise have positive benefits, which is backed up in the literature. So, this study really compared against best practice. I don't see the problem. Comparing a new treatment against best practice is ethical when you are dealing with people's lives.
- nova 17y ago
  And they will probably teach about the evil, evil meat and fats and say nothing about fructose and other carbohydrates...
tokenadult 17y ago
"Warning Signs in Experimental Design and Interpretation" http://norvig.com/experiment-design.html http://norvig.com/experiment-design.html
- foldr 17y ago
  What? Are you suggesting that the researchers made one of these errors?
rms 17y ago
If you're considering a type of meditation, I suspect the consensus of Hacker News meditators is for Vipassana meditation. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=587032 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=587032 The book is free. http://mail.saigon.com/~anson/ebud/mfneng/mind0.htm http://mail.saigon.com/~anson/ebud/mfneng/mind0.htm
- richcollins 17y ago
  Why would you suspect that Hacker News readers would be most interested in a meditation technique that is heavily grounded in metaphysics?
  - rms 17y ago
    Because it can be done as a technique while ignoring all of the voodoo-mumbo-jumbo. The book linked doesn't discuss the metaphysics. Just watch your breath, then be aware of all of the sensations in your body. Personally I find the metaphysics rather cute. For empirical evidence, I linked to a popular thread where few people had negative things to say about Vipassana. Of the people that suggested alternative meditation styles, one was modded to 3 points and one was at 1 points.
apallo 17y ago
Okay, this is weird. I just upvoted a few of the comments here that mentioned being a bit more critical to this research, and something weird is going on. A few minutes later those posts were below their original karma value! The only thing common among the downvoted posts was that they were a little critical of the research. I would just hate to find out that a few TM people created new accounts to bias the comments here. Just thought it was interesting, but who knows, I might just be getting a little paranoid.

15 points by blazamos 17y ago

Saw a link to the article on Dan Benjamin's Hivelogic and was wondering what you guys think. The allegedly biased Wikipedia-cited scientific research: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transcendental_Meditation#Scientific_research http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transcendental_Meditation#Scien... The article from Skeptic's Dictionary: http://skepdic.com/tm.html http://skepdic.com/tm.html MetaFilter thread on whether or not it's worth the $2500: http://ask.metafilter.com/22579/Is-it-worth-2500-to-learn-Transcendental-Meditation http://ask.metafilter.com/22579/Is-it-worth-2500-to-learn-Tr...

anigbrowl 17y ago
Bear in mind we're talking about the Telegraph here...they're just as likely to publish an op-ed tomorrow dismissing yoga as an effete liberal pursuit and bemoaning the difficulty of obtaining a traditional English steak and kidney pie or Yorkshire pudding, an edible form of kryptonite.
GiraffeNecktie 17y ago
The WP article is a completely whitewashed history of the organization, clearly edited by TM people. The organization has a loooooooong history of making dubious claims based mostly on research performed by its own people. http://www.aaskolnick.com/naswmav.htm http://www.aaskolnick.com/naswmav.htm Even when their research has been refuted by numerous other studies, they'll continue to quote it, as if it were still valid. What's worse is that they've gone to great pains to hide the serious side effects of TM. http://www.suggestibility.org/ http://www.suggestibility.org/
- apallo 17y ago
  Wow thank you for that suggestibility.org link. After reading the telegraph article I googled it, read a bit of the wikipedia page, and then read a few reviews on amazon about TM that said "great book, but the personal lessons are where it's really at." Pretty soon I was on the actual TM website. To my knowledge I have never fallen so blatantly for something; I mean I almost checked out what their prices are. That is just plain embarrassing. I can't remember the last time I fell for something like that. What can I say; as much as I hate some of the stupid stuff that's posted on ycombinator I think most people here are bit more scientific and logical than I fully appreciate.

nandemo 17y ago

Over nine years, 201 African American people with an average age of 59 and who had all been diagnosed with heart disease were randomly assigned to either Transcendental Meditation or health education classes about diet and exercise. Where's the control group? Classes about diet and exercise can be rather stressful to overweight people...

deleted 17y ago
[deleted]
trapper 17y ago
Where's your research to prove your assertion? The consensus in the field is that health education classes about diet and exercise have positive benefits, which is backed up in the literature. So, this study really compared against best practice. I don't see the problem. Comparing a new treatment against best practice is ethical when you are dealing with people's lives.
nova 17y ago
And they will probably teach about the evil, evil meat and fats and say nothing about fructose and other carbohydrates...

tokenadult 17y ago

"Warning Signs in Experimental Design and Interpretation" http://norvig.com/experiment-design.html http://norvig.com/experiment-design.html

foldr 17y ago
What? Are you suggesting that the researchers made one of these errors?

rms 17y ago

If you're considering a type of meditation, I suspect the consensus of Hacker News meditators is for Vipassana meditation. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=587032 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=587032 The book is free. http://mail.saigon.com/~anson/ebud/mfneng/mind0.htm http://mail.saigon.com/~anson/ebud/mfneng/mind0.htm

richcollins 17y ago
Why would you suspect that Hacker News readers would be most interested in a meditation technique that is heavily grounded in metaphysics?
- rms 17y ago
  Because it can be done as a technique while ignoring all of the voodoo-mumbo-jumbo. The book linked doesn't discuss the metaphysics. Just watch your breath, then be aware of all of the sensations in your body. Personally I find the metaphysics rather cute. For empirical evidence, I linked to a popular thread where few people had negative things to say about Vipassana. Of the people that suggested alternative meditation styles, one was modded to 3 points and one was at 1 points.

apallo 17y ago

Okay, this is weird. I just upvoted a few of the comments here that mentioned being a bit more critical to this research, and something weird is going on. A few minutes later those posts were below their original karma value! The only thing common among the downvoted posts was that they were a little critical of the research. I would just hate to find out that a few TM people created new accounts to bias the comments here. Just thought it was interesting, but who knows, I might just be getting a little paranoid.