From the Maharishi University of Management Review, May 13, 1998:

University Researchers Receive $2.26 Million Research Grant

By Brynne Sissom

The National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute recently awarded the University a research grant for $2.26 million to support a research and demonstration project on the use of the Transcendental Meditation® technique to prevent hypertension.

Dr. Robert Schneider, director of the Center for Health and Aging Studies and co-director for the grant, said, "This grant is a high point in our 10 years of research on preventing the number one disease of our time--chronic heart disease--through the use of the Transcendental Meditation program."  Dr. Schneider said he believes that this is the largest grant the University has received and the largest grant ever from the government for study of the Maharishi Vedic Approach to Health (SM) program.

Unlike earlier grants, which focused on treatment of hypertension, Dr. Schneider and co-director Charles Alexander will look at "primary prevention," that is, preventing the development of hypertension in people who have "high normal" blood pressure through the use of the Transcendental Meditation technique.

Government grants are graded or ranked in percentiles and funded accordingly. This grant, titled "Stress Reduction for the Prevention of Hypertension in African Americans," received a rating in the top one percent of the proposals submitted in the competition.  "This is the highest priority rating ever received on a grant by the University," said John Salerno, Assistant Director of the Center for Health and Aging Studies.

The research is in collaboration with the Medical College of Wisconsin, located in Milwaukee.

The research will cover five years, with subjects who are borderline hypertensive being randomly assigned into two groups, one a Transcendental Meditation group, and a second group called a health education control group.  The second group will receive lectures and lifestyle modification options, but will not use practical techniques. Researchers will observe which subjects stay healthy and which move in to advanced stages of illness.  The anticipated primary outcome will be a change in blood pressure, with secondary outcomes being changes in hypertensive events, psychosocial stress, and health behaviors.

Filling out the University's research team are Dr. Salerno and Maxwell Rainforth, University researcher and statistician.

For more information, please contact: Dr. John Salerno or check the web site at: http://www.mum.edu/CHAS/

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