Meditation or Exercise for Preventing Acute Respiratory Infection: A Randomized Controlled Trial

Abstract

PURPOSE This study was designed to evaluate potential preventive effects of meditation or exercise on incidence, duration, and severity of acute respiratory infection (ARI) illness.METHODS Community-recruited adults aged 50 years and older were randomized to 1 of 3 study groups: 8-week training in mindfulness meditation, matched 8-week training in moderate-intensity sustained exercise, or observational control. The primary outcome was area-under-the-curve global illness severity during a single cold and infl uenza season, using the Wisconsin Upper Respiratory Symptom Survey (WURSS-24) to assess severity. Health care visits and days of missed work were counted. Nasal wash collected during ARI illness was assayed for neutrophils, interleukin-8, and viral nucleic acid. RESULTSOf 154 adults randomized into the study, 149 completed the trial (82% female, 94% white, mean age 59.3 ± 6.6 years). There were 27 ARI episodes and 257 days of ARI illness in the meditation group (n = 51), 26 episodes and 241 illness days in the exercise group (n = 47), and 40 episodes and 453 days in the control group (n = 51). Mean global severity was 144 for meditation, 248 for exercise, and 358 for control. Compared with control, global severity was signifi cantly lower for meditation (P = .004). Both global severity and total days of illness (duration) trended toward being lower for the exercise group (P = .16 and P = .032, respectively), as did illness duration for the meditation group (P = .034). Adjusting for covariates using zero-infl ated multivariate regression models gave similar results. There were 67 ARI-related days of-work missed in the control group, 32 in the exercise group (P = .041), and 16 in the meditation group (P <.001). Health care visits did not differ signifi cantly. Viruses were identifi ed in 54% of samples from meditation, 42% from exercise, and 54% from control groups. Neutrophil count and interleukin-8 levels were similar among intervention groups. CONCLUSIONSTraining in meditation or exercise may be effective in reducing ARI illness burden.

Age and psychological influences on immune responses to trivalent inactivated influenza vaccine in the meditation or exercise for preventing acute respiratory infection (MEPARI) trial

“…The parent study, from which the current data were derived, showed that both exercise and MBSR reduced the number of days sick from all-cause acute respiratory infection (ARI) illness. 23 The incidence, duration and global severity of ARI illness episodes were decreased by 33-35% and 31-60%, among those assigned to MBSR and exercise training as compared with control. Nevertheless, the influenza vaccine generated similar, and what would be considered protective and clinically effective responses in most participants in this study cohort.…”

Mindfulness Interventions

“…Some of the most encouraging RCT research in the mindfulness intervention-physical health literature focuses on whether mindfulness interventions affect clinically-relevant measures of health and disease. An initial large RCT (N=154) showed that MBSR may reduce the number of self-reported illness days (and illness duration) over the course of a cold/flu season relative to a no treatment group (Barrett et al 2012). However, MBSR showed no relative advantage on illness-related outcomes compared to a moderate aerobic exercise program in this trial, although there was some evidence that MBSR reduced the total number of acute respiratory infection-related work days missed (16 days), more so than the aerobic exercise (32 days) and no treatment control (67 days) groups.…”

Procalcitonin Levels in Acute Respiratory Infection

“…While it is known that people can influence the functioning of their immune system through exercise, meditation, breathing techniques, and exposure to cold, we believe it is unlikely the interventions of the randomized clinical trial could significantly influence PCT measurements (2,8).…”