The Buddha taught how to achieve enlightenment, but didn’t say much about gut flora.
Poo-pooing the benefits of meditation feels like bad karma in The Back Page’s humble opinion.
And now, after poking around in stool and blood samples taken from some Buddhist monks, a team of Chinese researchers is excited about a possible link between long-term meditation, gut microbes and mental health.
Meditation is increasingly used to help treat mental health disorders, such as depression, anxiety, substance abuse, traumatic stress, and eating disorders as well as chronic pain.
But the researchers, based at Shanghai’s Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, were curious about whether the practice could also affect the makeup of the gut microbiome.
They recently unveiled their findings in General Psychiatry, a title published by BMJ but owned by the Shanghai Mental Health Center.
The team analysed stool and blood samples taken from 37 Tibetan Buddhist monks from three temples as well as samples from 19 more worldly residents living in the neighbouring areas.
The monks weren’t the type of people who show up for a weekend wellness retreat; these guys had been in the meditation business for between three and 30 years.
None of the participants in the research had used substances that alter the volume and diversity of gut microbes – antibiotics, probiotics, prebiotics, or antifungal drugs – in the preceding three months. Both groups were also controlled for age, blood pressure, heart rate, and diet, allowing the researchers to attribute any differences in microbiotic makeup to meditation practice – no other potentially relevant variables specific to monastic life are considered.
The researchers’ analysis of the stools unearthed significant differences in the diversity and volume of microbes between the monks and their less spiritual counterparts.
As expected, Bacteroidetes and Firmicutes species dominated the gut profiles of both groups. But Bacteroidetes were significantly enriched in the monks’ stool samples – a whopping 29% by contrast with the 4% in the neighbours’ tummies. The monks’ guts also had a whole load of Prevotella (42% versus 6%) and volumes of Megamonas and Faecalibacterium to boot.
“Collectively, several bacteria enriched in the meditation group [have been] associated with the alleviation of mental illness, suggesting that meditation can influence certain bacteria that may have a role in mental health,” write the researchers.
Meanwhile, the blood sample analysis revealed that several agents associated with a heightened risk of cardiovascular disease, including total cholesterol and apolipoprotein B, were much lower in the monks.
Let’s not get ahead of ourselves: the Shanghai team cautioned that this is a comparative but observational study and the participants were few in number and all male so there are limits to the more general conclusions that can be drawn. Potential health implications can only be drawn from existing research.
However, the team believes further research into the connection between this centuries-old practice and mental health is well worthwhile.
“These results suggest that long-term deep meditation may have a beneficial effect on gut microbiota, enabling the body to maintain an optimal state of health,” they concluded.
Something to ponder on your next trip to the yoga studio.
If you feel like you’ve reached a higher plane of being, share your experience with penny@medicalrepublic.com.au.
