Meditation will cure you: "Transcendental meditation improves blood pressure and insulin resistance in heart patients, according to a placebo-controlled study carried out at an academic medical center in California. Researchers studied 84 patients with coronary artery disease, randomly dividing them into two groups. The first received a 16-week course of health education; the second was enrolled in a course in transcendental meditation. Both groups continued to receive conventional medical care and advice. Transcendental meditation is a technique that involves mental concentration and physical relaxation through the use of a mantra, a repeated phrase or syllable. By the end of the study, the participants in the meditation group had significantly lower blood pressure compared with participants in the control group. They also had significantly improved in measures of insulin resistance, the ability of the body to properly process insulin and blood sugar. The paper appeared yesterday in Archives of Internal Medicine".