MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
David S. Black, Ph.D., M.P.H.
Associate Professor of Preventive Medicine
Keck School of Medicine of USC.
Medical Research: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?
Dr. Black: Sleep disturbances pose a significant medical and public health
concern for our nation’s aging population. An estimated 50% of people
aged 55 years and older suffer from some form of sleep problem,
including initiating and maintaining sleep. Sleep can be affected by a number of things. There are obvious factors like disturbances, dealing with insomnia or any form of aches and pains. But there is also one that many people have probably not considered. Traffic noise. Just like the factors listed previously, there is always a solution to a problem. There isn't anything that cannot be fixed. If you are someone that is having trouble sleeping due to the high level of traffic noises around your area, it may be best to look into a site like soundproofpanda.com to find a solution that can help reduce this issue and eventually provide you with a good's night sleep. Older adults report the highest prevalence of sleep problems compared to younger age groups when quantified by both self-report and biological assessment.
Moderate sleep complaints in older adults are often associated with
deficits in daytime functioning, including elevated levels of fatigue,
disturbed mood such as depressive symptoms and reduced quality of
life, and lead to the onset of clinical insomnia. Addressing moderate
sleep complaints and sleep-related daytime dysfunction using
community-accessible programs is a promising public health approach.
Our main findings indicate that the mindfulness training program,
which is available to the general community, resulted in improvement
in sleep quality at post-intervention relative to a highly active and
standardized sleep hygiene education program. Effect size for
improvement in sleep quality was large (0.89) and of clinical
relevance considering that effect sizes obtained from all types of
behavioral interventions on self-reported sleep quality outcomes
averages 0.76 in older adults. Meta-analyses comparing treatment
modalities indicate that the mean effect size for self-reported sleep
improvements resulting from pharmacotherapy (0.87) (i.e.,
benzodiazepines, benzodiazepine receptor agonists) and behavioral
therapy (0.96) are of medium-to-large magnitude in mixed-age adult
samples with primary insomnia. Thus, our observed changes are
consistent with previous studies and are at the level of a minimally
important difference for insomnia severity. The mindfulness program
also yielded relative improvements on sleep-related daytime
impairments of depression and fatigue symptoms that were of
medium-to-large effect size.
(more…)
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Linda E. Carlson, Ph.D., R.Psych.
Enbridge Research Chair in Psychosocial Oncology
Alberta Innovates-Health Solutions Health Scholar
Professor, Department of Oncology, Faculty of Medicine
Adjunct Professor, Department of Psychology, Faculty of Arts
University of Calgary Clinical Psychologist, Director of Research
Department of Psychosocial Resources
Medical Research: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?Dr. Carlson:We have been investigating the effects of cancer support programs including the two in this study, Mindfulness-based cancer recovery, an 8-week group program in which patients learn mindfulness meditation and gentle yoga, and supportive-expressive therapy, a 12-week program where patients share difficult emotions in a supportive group environment. We know there is psychological benefit of these programs, but what about effects in the body?
Telomeres are the protective caps on the end of chromosomes (like the tips on shoelaces) that protect them from damage and degredation. They are longest when we are young and naturally get shorter as we age. Shorter telomere's are associated with higher risk for many diseases, including cancer, and people with higher stress levels tend to have shorter telomeres.
This is the first study to investigate whether short psychosocial interventions can affect telomere length in cancer pateints. We randomly assigned breast cancer survivors with cancer-related distress, feelings such as anxiety, fear, worry, and depression, to either mindfulness-based cancer recovery, supportive expressive therapy or a control group that just had a minimal intervention. We took blood samples before and after the groups (or at equal time points for those in the control condition) and measured the length of the telomeres.
Women in both of the active support groups maintained the length of their telomeres over time, but the telomere length of women in the control group became shorter. This is the first controlled study to show that short-term interventions can actually have some effect on cellular aging in the telomeres. (more…)
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:Madhav Goyal MD, MPH
Assistant Professor
General Internal Medicine
Johns Hopkins School of Medicine
MedicalResearch.com: What are the main findings of the study?Dr. Goyal:
The evidence is moderately strong that there is a small but consistent benefit for mindfulness meditation programs to improve 3 symptoms: anxiety, depression, and pain. We found low level evidence that mindfulness meditation helps with symptoms of stress and distress, as well as with the mental health dimension of quality of life.
For the symptoms of anxiety and depression for which we find moderate evidence of benefit, we need to keep in mind that most of the trials didn't study people with a clinical diagnosis of anxiety or depression (although a few did). Most were studying diverse patient populations who may have had a low level of these symptoms, such as those with breast cancer, fibromyalgia, organ transplant recipients, and caregivers of people with dementia.
We found about a 5-10% improvement in anxiety symptoms compared to placebo groups. For depression, we found a roughly 10-20% improvement in depressive symptoms compared to the placebo groups. This is similar to the effects that other studies have found for the use of antidepressants in similar populations.
While we found that the evidence was moderately strong that mindfulness meditation programs may improve pain, there weren't as many trials evaluating chronic pain, and so we don't understand what kinds of pain this type of meditation may be most useful for.
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