A potential association of meditation with menopausal symptoms and blood chemistry in healthy women A pilot cross-sectional study

Owing to hormonal changes, women experience various psychophysiological alterations over a wide age range, which may result in decreased quality of life as well as in increased risks of diseases, such as cardiovascular diseases. Although studies have been performed to research complementary methods, such as meditation, the research field still requires an adequate amount of studies for public health guidelines. This pilot cross-sectional study aims to investigate a potential association of meditation with menopausal symptoms and blood chemistry for healthy women. In this study, data of 65 healthy women (age range 25-67) including 33 meditation practitioners and 32 meditation-naive controls were analyzed to compare the Menopausal Rating Scale scores and blood chemistry with 7 more dropouts in the blood chemistry. For blood chemistry, nine components including glucose (GLU) and high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL) were measured. Two-way analysis of variance was performed by dividing the total participants into 2 groups:premenopausalandpostmenopausalparticipants. Compared to the control group, the meditation group showed a trend of reductions in the Menopausal Rating Scale total score (P = .054) and its 2 subcomponents: depressive mood (P = .064) and irritability (P = .061). In HDL level, there was a significant interaction between group and menopausal state (P = .039) with following post hoc results: among thepremenopausalparticipants, a significant increase in the meditation group compared to the control group (P = .005); among the control group, a significant increase in thepostmenopausalcompared to thepremenopausalparticipants (P = .030). In GLU level, there was a mild interaction between group and menopausal state (P = .070) with following post hoc results: among thepostmenopausalparticipants, a trend of increase in the control group compared to the meditation group (P = .081); among the control group, a significant increase in thepostmenopausalcompared to thepremenopausalparticipants (P = .040). Our research suggests a potential association of practicing meditation with alleviations in menopausal symptoms and changes in blood chemistry, warranting further studies with a longitudinal study design and larger populations to understand the underlying causal relationships.