Live Long and Prosper –
August 24, 2019 – Telomeres are the end caps of DNA on our chromosomes, which help in DNA replication and get shorter over time. “Chronological age and biological age are not identical. The former is measured in years, whereas the latter is often indexed by telomere length,” the authors of the new study explained. “Telomeres progressively shorten with cell division (i.e., aging) in general, but may also be replenished, or lengthened, by the enzyme telomerase.” For their 12-week long study, the researchers recruited 176 participants between 35-64 years old from Durham and Orange County of North Carolina. All of the participants reported having little to no meditation experience.
The participants were randomly assigned to a 6-week loving-kindness meditation workshop, a 6-week mindfulness meditation workshop, or a waitlist control group. To measure telomere length, the researchers collected blood samples from the participants at the beginning and end of the study. While the mindfulness meditation workshop helped the participants to cultivate a nonjudgmental attitude and focus on the present moment, the loving-kindness meditation workshop helped the participants to cultivate warm and friendly feelings towards others. “Whereas participants in the mindfulness group, on average, showed significant telomere shortening over time, those changes were intermediate between the loving-kindness meditation and waitlist control groups,” the researchers added. The study is not the first to find a relationship between meditation and telomere length.
