High Medical Costs Decrease Significantly after Five Years of Transcendental Meditation
American Journal of Health Promotion, Autumn 2011
According to a newly published Canadian study, the medical costs of treating people with consistently high healthcare needs was reduced by 28 percent after an average of five years practice of the stress-reducing Transcendental Meditation technique by the individuals, indicating a significant improvement in their general health.
This study has major implications for state and public healthcare policy, as in most populations only a small fraction of people account for the majority of health care costs.
In Canada, where all legal residents are members of the public health care system, Medicare, the highest-costing 5 percent of patients incur 43 percent of all public health costs, and the highest-costing 25 percent of senior citizens accounted for 85 percent of total expenses.
This study compared the changes in physician costs (equivalent to the cost of GP and hospital specialist consultations and treatment) for 284 users of Canada's Medicare public health system over five years in Québec. All those participating were in the highest-costing 10 percent of health-system users at the outset of the study, many of whom had incurred consistently high medical bills over many years . 142 were Transcendental Meditation practitioners, while the other 142 made up a non-meditating control group.
During the five-year assessment period the TM group's annual physician costs declined significantly, while the comparison group's payments showed no significant changes. After the first year, the TM group decreased 11 percent, and after 5 years, their cumulative reduction was 28 percent.
Chronic stress is the number one factor contributing to high medical expenses. Stress reduction may help reduce these costs. Other studies, including randomized clinical trials, indicate the Transcendental Meditation technique can improve physical and mental health, decrease tobacco use, reduce substance abuse, and decrease other unhealthy habits and risk factors that lead to chronic disease and costly treatments.
The study's author, Robert E Herron, PhD, is an independent researcher, and director of the Center for Health Systems Analysis in Canada.
In a previous Canadian study of senior citizens, the TM group's five-year cumulative reduction for people aged 65 years and older relative to comparison subjects was 70 percent.
In a sample of American health insurance enrollees, the TM participants had reduced rates of illness in all disease categories. An eleven-year, cross-sectional study in Iowa found that subjects age 45 and over who practised the TM technique had 88 percent fewer hospital days compared with controls. Their medical expenditures were 60 percent below the norm.
Commenting on the new study, Dr Herron said that the results had major policy significance for saving state healthcare costs without cutting benefits or increasing taxes.
"Almost no [other] intervention for cost containment has decreased medical expenditures by 28 percent over 5 years from a baseline. Now, it may be possible to rescue Medicare and Medicaid by adding coverage for learning the Transcendental Meditation technique."
American Journal of Health Promotion vol. 26, no. 1, pp. 56-60
