Telomere length correlates with subtelomeric DNA methylation in long-term mindfulness practitioners

Mendioroz, Maite; Puebla‐Guedea, Marta; Montero-Marín, Jesús; Urdánoz‐Casado, Amaya; Blanco‐Luquin, Idoia; Roldán, Miren; Labarga, Alberto; Garcı́a-Campayo, Javier

doi:10.1038/s41598-020-61241-6

Cited by 24 publications

(38 citation statements)

References 96 publications

(125 reference statements)

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“…Through screening titles and the abstracts against the pre-set inclusion criteria, 134 full text articles were selected for review-in-detail. Review yielded only ve peer-reviewed, full text articles: three CCS [35,36,37](30) and two RCTs [31,30] which met the full eligibility criteria. PRISMA checklist and the list of excluded publications and reasons for exclusion are provided in Appendix 1 (supplementary le 1) and 2 (supplementary le 2) respectively.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Primary outcome TL was reported as the primary outcome in all the studies. It was assessed using quantitative Polymerase Chain Reaction technique [31,36,30] or in situ hybridization technique [35,37] and reported as T/S ratio or in kilo-bases (kb), respectively. Details of the outcomes are shown in Table 4 (Additional le 1).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The CCS included a total of one hundred and eleven participants with fty-two meditators and fty-nine controls and the sample sizes varied among 34 to 40. Meditators were recruited from Vipassana meditation centers and retreat centers in New England [36], Mindfulness program at the University of Zaragoza and Spanish Association of Mindfulness [37], and Soto Zen Spanish Buddhist community [35].…”

Section: Case-control Studiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…These studies recruited long-term/experienced meditators who used three different meditation techniques: loving-kindness [36], mindfulness/observing thoughts [37], and Zen meditation [35] and the duration of the meditation experience of the meditators ranged from 4 years [36] to 10 years [35,37] with a mean of at least 60 minutes of practice per day [37,35]. One study did not mention the duration of a session but speci ed participants were those who practiced meditation daily [36].…”

Section: Case-control Studiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…x Mendioroz et al, 2020 Were the groups comparable other than the presence of disease in cases or absence of disease in controls? (disease = meditation)…”

Section: Not Applicablementioning

confidence: 99%

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The effects of meditation on length of telomeres in healthy individuals: A systematic review

Dasanayaka

Sirisena

Samaranayake

2020

Preprint

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Background: Meditation based practices have been suggested to result in many biological benefits which include reduction of attrition of telomeres, the protective nucleotide-protein complexes at termini of eukaryotic chromosomes. This systematic review evaluated the effects of meditation on telomere length (TL) in healthy adults. Methods: Randomized controlled trials (RCTs) and Case-control studies (CCS) conducted to determine the effects of meditation on TL in healthy individuals, published up to July 2020 were retrieved by searching seven electronic databases (PubMed, Scopus, PsycINFO, Embase, Cochrane Library, CINAHL and Google Scholar). The methodological quality of RCTs and CCS was assessed using the Cochrane Collaboration Risk of Bias Tool and Joanna Briggs Institute critical appraisal checklist respectively. The data was synthesized narratively and the effect estimates of telomere length in the RCTs was synthesized using alternative methods as a meta-analysis was not conducted. The certainty of evidence was classified according to the GRADE system. Results: A total of 1751 articles were screened. Five studies comprising two RCTs and three CCS were included in the final review based on the inclusion and exclusion criteria. The combined sample consisted of 615 participants with 41.7% males. Average age of participants was 47.7 years. One CCS and one RCT reported significant beneficial effects of meditation on TL while the two remaining CCS and the RCT showed positive effects of meditation on TL which were not significant. For all CCS and one RCT, the methodological quality was high while the remaining RCT was of moderate quality. The quality of evidence for the primary outcome was moderate in RCTs.Conclusion: The present review adds to the existing evidence showing that meditation is potentially beneficial in reducing shortening of TL in healthy adults. However, strictly designed and well-reported RCTs with larger sample sizes are required to provide evidence of higher quality. Systematic Review Registration: The protocol of this review was registered with the International Prospective Register of Systematic Reviews (PROSPERO) database (registration number: CRD42020153977)

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Case-control Studiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Case-control Studiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…x Mendioroz et al, 2020 Were the groups comparable other than the presence of disease in cases or absence of disease in controls? (disease = meditation)…”

Section: Not Applicablementioning

confidence: 99%

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The effects of meditation on length of telomeres in healthy individuals: A systematic review

Dasanayaka

Sirisena

Samaranayake

2020

Preprint

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The Effects of Mindfulness-Based Interventions on Telomere Length and Telomerase Activity: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

et al. 2023

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Objectives Previous meta-analyses suggested that mindfulness-based interventions (MBIs) may have beneficial effects on telomere length (TL) and telomerase activity (TA), two biological markers of cellular aging and cell stress. The present review aimed to provide the most comprehensive synthesis of the available evidence to date and tested a number of important effect moderators. Method Twenty-five studies (18 RCTs, 1 RCT and cohort study, 6 non-randomized studies) with 2099 participants in total were obtained with a systematic literature search, 10 studies had not been included in any previous meta-analysis. Effect sizes were aggregated with random-effects models, the risk of bias was evaluated with standardized checklists, and the most influential moderators were identified with a machine-learning approach. Results On average, MBIs had small-to-medium effects on TL (g = 0.23, 95% CI = [0.07, 0.39], p = 0.006) and TA (g = 0.37 [0.01, 0.73], p = 0.046), which, however, were driven by retrospective case–control studies with experienced meditators (TL) and by studies without control interventions and studies from Asia (TA). Most studies had an unclear risk of bias and low analytic power, and there was an indication of publication bias among the TL studies. Conclusions TL may not be a useful outcome to assess the efficacy of common MBIs. Effects on TA were smaller than previously assumed and may not be specific for MBIs; TA likely is increased by other active interventions as well. More high-quality and high-powered studies, which also apply open-science practices, are needed to move the field forward.

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Effects of stress and mindfulness on epigenetics

Househam

2023

Hormones and Epigenetics

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Telomere length correlates with subtelomeric DNA methylation in long-term mindfulness practitioners

Cited by 24 publications

References 96 publications

The effects of meditation on length of telomeres in healthy individuals: A systematic review

The effects of meditation on length of telomeres in healthy individuals: A systematic review

The Effects of Mindfulness-Based Interventions on Telomere Length and Telomerase Activity: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

Effects of stress and mindfulness on epigenetics

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