Abstract
Although the onset and progression of coronary heart disease (CHD) involve multiple
risk factors, few intervention studies have attempted to modify these factors simultaneously.
This pilot study tested the effect of a multimodality intervention involving dietary,
exercise, herbal food supplement, and stress reduction approaches from a traditional
system of natural medicine, Maharishi Vedic Medicine (MVM). The primary outcome measure
was carotid intima-media thickness (IMT), a noninvasive measure of peripheral atherosclerosis
and surrogate measure of coronary atherosclerosis. Comparison groups included modern
medicine (conventional dietary, exercise, and multivitamin approaches) and usual care
(no added intervention). Of 57 healthy seniors (mean age 74 years) randomized to the
3 treatment groups, 46 completed IMT post-testing. Carotid IMT was determined by B-mode
ultrasound before and after 1 year of treatment. IMT decreased in a larger fraction
of MVM subjects (16 of 20) than in the modern (5 of 9) and usual care (7 of 14) groups
combined (i.e., 12 of 23; odds ratio 3.7, p = 0.05). For subjects with multiple CHD
risk factors (“high-risk” subjects, n = 15), IMT decreased more in the MVM (−0.32
± 0.23 mm, mean ± SD) than in the usual care (+0.022 ± 0.085; p = 0.009) or modern
(−0.082 ± 0.095, p = 0.10) groups. Within-group reductions in IMT were significant
for all MVM subjects (−0.15 ± 0.21, n = 20, p = 0.004) and for high-risk MVM subjects
(n = 6, p = 0.01). These results show that this multimodality traditional approach
can attenuate atherosclerosis in older subjects, particularly those with marked CHD
risk.
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Article Info
Publication History
Accepted:
January 11,
2002
Received in revised form:
January 11,
2002
Received:
August 8,
2001
Footnotes
☆This study was supported in part by Grant RRF 94-88 from The Retirement Research Foundation and Grant IP50AT00082-01 from the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine to Dr Schneider, and NIA Senior Fellowship AG05735-3 to Dr. Fields.
Identification
Copyright
© 2002 Excerpta Medica Inc. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
