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Meditation and vacation effects have an impact on disease-associated molecular phenotypes

Overview of attention for article published in Translational Psychiatry, August 2016
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About this Attention Score

  • In the top 5% of all research outputs scored by Altmetric
  • One of the highest-scoring outputs from this source (#9 of 3,710)
  • High Attention Score compared to outputs of the same age (99th percentile)
  • High Attention Score compared to outputs of the same age and source (99th percentile)

Mentioned by

news
56 news outlets
blogs
9 blogs
twitter
340 X users
facebook
33 Facebook pages
wikipedia
1 Wikipedia page
googleplus
7 Google+ users
reddit
2 Redditors
video
2 YouTube creators

Citations

dimensions_citation
76 Dimensions

Readers on

mendeley
267 Mendeley
Title
Meditation and vacation effects have an impact on disease-associated molecular phenotypes
Published in
Translational Psychiatry, August 2016
DOI 10.1038/tp.2016.164
Pubmed ID
Authors

E S Epel, E Puterman, J Lin, E H Blackburn, P Y Lum, N D Beckmann, J Zhu, E Lee, A Gilbert, R A Rissman, R E Tanzi, E E Schadt

Abstract

Meditation is becoming increasingly practiced, especially for stress-related medical conditions. Meditation may improve cellular health; however, studies have not separated out effects of meditation from vacation-like effects in a residential randomized controlled trial. We recruited healthy women non-meditators to live at a resort for 6 days and randomized to either meditation retreat or relaxing on-site, with both groups compared with 'regular meditators' already enrolled in the retreat. Blood drawn at baseline and post intervention was assessed for transcriptome-wide expression patterns and aging-related biomarkers. Highly significant gene expression changes were detected across all groups (the 'vacation effect') that could accurately predict (96% accuracy) between baseline and post-intervention states and were characterized by improved regulation of stress response, immune function and amyloid beta (Aβ) metabolism. Although a smaller set of genes was affected, regular meditators showed post-intervention differences in a gene network characterized by lower regulation of protein synthesis and viral genome activity. Changes in well-being were assessed post intervention relative to baseline, as well as 1 and 10 months later. All groups showed equivalently large immediate post-intervention improvements in well-being, but novice meditators showed greater maintenance of lower distress over time compared with those in the vacation arm. Regular meditators showed a trend toward increased telomerase activity compared with randomized women, who showed increased plasma Aβ42/Aβ40 ratios and tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNF-α) levels. This highly controlled residential study showed large salutary changes in gene expression networks due to the vacation effect, common to all groups. For those already trained in the practice of meditation, a retreat appears to provide additional benefits to cellular health beyond the vacation effect.

X Demographics

X Demographics

The data shown below were collected from the profiles of 340 X users who shared this research output. Click here to find out more about how the information was compiled.
Mendeley readers

Mendeley readers

The data shown below were compiled from readership statistics for 267 Mendeley readers of this research output. Click here to see the associated Mendeley record.

Geographical breakdown

Country Count As %
United States 2 <1%
Spain 1 <1%
United Kingdom 1 <1%
Unknown 263 99%

Demographic breakdown

Readers by professional status Count As %
Student > Master 36 13%
Researcher 34 13%
Student > Bachelor 34 13%
Student > Ph. D. Student 33 12%
Student > Doctoral Student 19 7%
Other 59 22%
Unknown 52 19%
Readers by discipline Count As %
Psychology 44 16%
Medicine and Dentistry 37 14%
Agricultural and Biological Sciences 35 13%
Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology 21 8%
Neuroscience 21 8%
Other 46 17%
Unknown 63 24%
Attention Score in Context

Attention Score in Context

This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 747. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 09 August 2023.
All research outputs
#26,713
of 25,579,912 outputs
Outputs from Translational Psychiatry
#9
of 3,710 outputs
Outputs of similar age
#467
of 348,692 outputs
Outputs of similar age from Translational Psychiatry
#1
of 60 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 25,579,912 research outputs across all sources so far. Compared to these this one has done particularly well and is in the 99th percentile: it's in the top 5% of all research outputs ever tracked by Altmetric.
So far Altmetric has tracked 3,710 research outputs from this source. They typically receive a lot more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 24.3. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 99% of its peers.
Older research outputs will score higher simply because they've had more time to accumulate mentions. To account for age we can compare this Altmetric Attention Score to the 348,692 tracked outputs that were published within six weeks on either side of this one in any source. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 99% of its contemporaries.
We're also able to compare this research output to 60 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 99% of its contemporaries.