Medical Costs Lowered by Transcendental Meditation

by healthypages on 27/10/2011 - 07:22 am |

Tag: News

A study lasting five years has revealed that people who practice transcendental meditation have lower health costs. The researcher say that this result could well have a significant impact on policy decisions. With up to 70% of the total expenditure on medical treatment in the US being taken up by 10% of the population any effect on that figure can have far reaching financial benefits.

High medical bills are affected by one major contributing factor which is stress so any way to reduce its impact on people is highly desirable.

To carry out the study, the researcher evaluated the physician cost of 284 people whose medical bills were always high. Of the participants who came from Quebec in Canada, 142 were chosen at random from the Quebec health insurance enrollees and the other 142 were selected because they were practitioners of transcendental meditation who had just recently started their meditation practice just before joining the study. Both the TM and the non-TM participants were matched for region, sex and age. All participants were paying similar costs to physicians before any TM classes were taken.

Throughout the assessment lasting for 5 years the control groups' payments remained fairly unchanged whereas the TM group were having regular declining payments. By the end of the first year the TM group were paying 11% less than before the study started and by the end of 5 years they were paying cumulatively 28% less.

The fee reductions were measured on the basis of how much the Quebec health insurance agency were paying to private physicians. Physician payments make up 20% of the national health costs in both Canada and the US.

The author of the study, which was published in the American Journal of Health Promotion, is Robert E. Herron, Ph.D. Who is the Center for Health Systems Analysis director and an independent researcher.

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Comments

Tracy Chipman 10/11/2011 - 05:13 pm

TM is a wonderful stress management tool and truly an effective way to keep health cost down. I highly recommend it. Less stress = less health issues.

Ondine Constable 01/11/2011 - 06:20 pm

Meditating sounds like a more pleasant way to get healthy than sitting in a doctors waiting room...

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