Two recent studies suggest that meditation, support groups, and Tai Chi are associated with healing for breast cancer survivors.

Canadian researchers found that practicing mindfulness meditation or being involved in a support group has “a positive physical impact” at the cellular level in breast cancer survivors.

The researchers, at Alberta Health Services’ Tom Baker Cancer Centre and the University of Calgary Department of Oncology, demonstrated that telomeres (cellular markers of aging and longevity) maintain their length in breast cancer survivors who practice meditation or are involved in support groups, while they shorten in a comparison group without any intervention.

“We already know that psychosocial interventions like mindfulness meditation will help you feel better mentally, but now for the first time we have evidence that they can also influence key aspects of your biology,” says Linda E. Carlson, PhD, principal investigator and director of research in the Psychosocial Resources Department at the Tom Baker Cancer Centre.

“It was surprising that we could see any difference in telomere length at all over the three-month period studied,” says Carlson, who is also a U of C professor in the Faculty of Arts and the Cumming School of Medicine, and a member of the Southern Alberta Cancer Institute. “Further research is needed to better quantify these potential health benefits, but this is an exciting discovery that provides encouraging news.”

A total of 88 breast cancer survivors who had completed their treatments for at least three months were involved for the duration of the study. The average age was 55 and most participants had ended treatment two years prior. To be eligible, they also had to be experiencing significant levels of emotional distress.

In the Mindfulness-Based Cancer Recovery group, participants attended eight weekly, 90-minute group sessions that provided instruction on mindfulness meditation and gentle Hatha yoga, with the goal of cultivating non-judgmental awareness of the present moment. Participants were also asked to practice meditation and yoga at home for 45 minutes daily.

In the Supportive Expressive Therapy group, participants met for 90 minutes weekly for 12 weeks and were encouraged to talk openly about their concerns and their feelings. The objectives were to build mutual support and to guide women in expressing a wide range of both difficult and positive emotions, rather than suppressing or repressing them.

The participants randomly placed in the control group attended one, six-hour stress management seminar. All study participants had their blood analyzed and telomere length measured before and after the interventions.

The research was funded by the Alberta Cancer Foundation and the Canadian Breast Cancer Research Alliance.*

Tai Chi associated with reduced inflammation in breast-cancer patients with insomnia

In related news, UCLA researchers say they have discovered that the Chinese practice of Tai Chi can reduce inflammation in breast cancer patients who have insomnia following diagnosis and treatment.

Led by UCLA Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center member Michael Irwin, M.D., researchers conducted a five-year clinical trial in which they analyzed blood samples from 90 participants between 30 to 85 years old, before and after they started the Tai Chi routine.

“When people practice Tai Chi, there’s a decrease in the stress hormone system by the sympathetic nervous system,” said Irwin, who is professor of psychiatry and biobehavioral sciences at UCLA. He and colleagues also discovered that Tai Chi relaxes the body to a certain point that it can reduce inflammation, commonly seen in most breast cancer survivors after treatment, the researchers say.

“We saw that Tai Chi reversed cellular inflammation, by producing a down-regulation of the genes that lead to inflammation,” said Dr. Irwin. “Tai chi is a movement meditation, and we have found that similar anti-inflammatory effects occur when people practice other forms of meditation.”

Previous research indicated that the majority of women who successfully fought breast cancer were three times more likely (compared to the general population) to battle insomnia for at least ten years or more after the initial diagnosis.

The study was published online October 27th ahead of print in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.

* Calgary-area cancer patients can access information about Alberta Health Services programs in both mindfulness meditation and supportive expressive therapy, as well as other support programs at the Tom Baker Cancer Centre, by calling 403-355-3207.

---

Abstract of Mindfulness-based cancer recovery and supportive-expressive therapy maintain telomere length relative to controls in distressed breast cancer survivors

Background

Group psychosocial interventions including mindfulness-based cancer recovery (MBCR) and supportive-expressive group therapy (SET) can help breast cancer survivors decrease distress and influence cortisol levels. Although telomere length (TL) has been associated with breast cancer prognosis, the impact of these two interventions on TL has not been studied to date.

Methods

The objective of the current study was to compare the effects of MBCR and SET with a minimal intervention control condition (a 1-day stress management seminar) on TL in distressed breast cancer survivors in a randomized controlled trial. MBCR focused on training in mindfulness meditation and gentle Hatha yoga whereas SET focused on emotional expression and group support. The primary outcome measure was relative TL, the telomere/single-copy gene ratio, assessed before and after each intervention. Secondary outcomes were self-reported mood and stress symptoms.

Results

Eighty-eight distressed breast cancer survivors with a diagnosis of stage I to III cancer (using the American Joint Committee on Cancer (AJCC) TNM staging system) who had completed treatment at least 3 months prior participated. Using analyses of covariance on a per-protocol sample, there were no differences noted between the MBCR and SET groups with regard to the telomere/single-copy gene ratio, but a trend effect was observed between the combined intervention group and controls (F [1,84], 3.82; P = .054; η² = .043); TL in the intervention group was maintained whereas it was found to decrease for control participants. There were no associations noted between changes in TL and changes in mood or stress scores over time.

Conclusions

Psychosocial interventions providing stress reduction and emotional support resulted in trends toward TL maintenance in distressed breast cancer survivors, compared with decreases in usual care. Cancer 2014. © 2014 The Authors. Cancer published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc. on behalf of American Cancer Society.