Meditation Lengthens Life - Amazing Scientific Evidence!

Today I listened to an amazing interview with Doris Taylor, director of the Center for Cardiovascular Repair at the University of Minnesota. She was interviewed on Krista Tippett’s public radio show “Speaking of Faith.” Dr. Taylor became famous for bringing the heart of a dead animal back to life using stem cells. She works in a field sometimes called regenerative medicine.

I’m devoting my blog post today to this interview, first because I found it quite amazing (and as a magician I have a nose for amazing things and make it my business to find out about them), and, second, because I know it will be helpful for some who might read this entry.

This interview may have been just the push I need right now to propel me into some kind of serious meditation practice, which is something my wife has been suggesting to me for a decade now.

The first half-hour of the interview is all about stem cells and stem cell research. Then they broach the topic of meditation. And what is the connection between stem cells and meditation?

Stem cells are not the possession of fertilized eggs and fetuses only. Right now, even as I write, there are billions of stem cells in my blood, and many of them are being shipped in to various parts of my body to replace damaged cells. Our organs and tissues have stem cells that can repair them, which is why a skinned knee does not leave a scar. For most of our lives we have stem cells in all of our organs and tissues, and these cells are able to heal damage. They handle the normal wear and tear that our body suffers, such as the damage caused to the interior walls of blood vessels as a result of eating cheeseburgers.

Stem cells exist within our bodies throughout our lives until we get so old that we pretty much use them up. Skinning your knee at age 72 may leave a scar because as we age the number of stem cells we have go down, and the ones we do have are not as potent and have very limited functionality.

Dr. Taylor says that ultimately if our body takes enough hits over a long enough period of time we run out of stem cells. At any given time we have a certain number of stem cells in our blood. As we mistreat our bodies the number of stem cells in the blood increases to try to keep pace with the damage. Ultimately this fails, and then disease sets in. Dr. Taylor’s goal is to help us move backwards along this continuum.

How does all this relate to meditation? Stress ages your stem cells. Dr. Taylor says that decreasing stress means increasing the number of stem cells we have in our body.

I was amazed to hear that there is scientific data from some of the best laboratories in the world showing that the way a cell knows how old it is is through a little piece of DNA on the end of our chromosomes. This is called a telomere. Every time your cell divides that telomere gets shorter. After reaching a certain point it says, “Oh dear, I’m old now . . . time to die.”

Guess what. Stress makes that piece of DNA get shorter! Hearing this from a reputable, top laboratory scientist just blew my mind!

Even more incredible, there are ways to lengthen telomeres!

Dr. Taylor has done experiments with Mattieu Ricard, famous Buddhist and French philosopher who has worked with the Dali Lama (and is also a trained cell biologist). Ricard and several of his colleagues meditate while researchers at the University of Wisconsin measure differences in brain waves. Dr. Taylor predicted that meditation which produces positive brain waves changes would also have a measurable effect on your stem cells. Ricard agreed to allow cells in his blood to be measured before and after meditation. What they found was a huge increase in the number of positive stem cells. Dr. Taylor said it was the largest increase she had ever seen after only 15 minutes of meditation!

These stem cells are coming out of the bone marrow and entering the blood stream, meaning that they are available to the body for repair work. Bodily inflammation of any kind – whether the externally visible kind that develops from a skinned knee, or the constantly erupting internal inflammations in tissue, organs and blood vessels – Dr. Taylor says that inflammation is the body’s signal (we might say its Roman candle, its literal “flair up”) asking for the necessary cells to heal the damage. If your body is able to get the right cells to that location you heal; if not, the inflammation increases.

Meditation is essentially sending cells to the sites where you need them to deal with stress before it erupts into physiological inflammation.

Maybe the idea that meditation lowers stress and therefore lengthens life (all other factors being equal) is old news to you. If so, listening to this interview will at least arm you with an empirical basis for your intuitions.

Was it old news for me? Well, I have never doubted that various kinds of meditative practices bring health benefits. But that did not amount to the conviction necessary to sit down and actually start practicing.

I am impressed by scientific evidence. When they start measuring Mattieu Ricard’s blood cell level, and when they start getting down to the level of telomeres – their role in aging and their manipulability – I am impressed. And I am robbed of any excuse.

I can’t see how anyone can listen to an interview with Doris Taylor, care about their health, their body, and their inner rejuvenation, and not start working on integrating some kind of meditative practice into their life.

I highly recommend listening to this program. But here’s an important tip: when you go to the website, do not listen to the regular 50 or so minute show. Rather, download the entire one-and-a-half hour interview, available under “Unheard Cuts.” This version has no music, no announcer, no fanfare, no introduction – it’s just the entire uncut, unedited interview. I always listen to Speaking of Faith that way. You get so much more!

Enjoy, and let me know what you think.

http://speakingoffaith.publicradio.org/programs/2009/stem-cells/