Meditating does the mind good

The ideas and innovators shaping health care

Oct 10, 2024 View in browser   By Daniel Payne, Carmen Paun, Ruth Reader and Erin Schumaker FORWARD THINKING Meditating can help people with anxiety, a study found. | Photo courtesy of Flickr. Meditation may be as effective as medication in treating anxiety, new research in JAMA Network Open suggests. The study involved 276 patients with anxiety disorders, with a mean age of 33, who were randomly assigned into two groups: About half received anti-anxiety drug Lexapro, and the other half engaged in mindfulness-based stress reduction techniques. No “clinically meaningful differences” in the effectiveness of the therapies were found, according to the authors, affiliated with Georgetown University Medical Center, the National Institutes of Health and New York University, among others. Patients in the mindfulness group attended weekly classes on the theory and practice of several forms of meditation. Most patients taking the medication experienced side effects but showed slightly better outcomes mid-study — though treatment outcomes were similar by the end of the eight-week research period. Why it matters: For patients who experience significant side effects from anxiety medication — sometimes causing them to give them up altogether — meditation could offer another path. And for others, it could provide an additional therapy to enhance the effectiveness of their existing treatments. WELCOME TO FUTURE PULSE Thurmont, Md. | Shawn Zeller/POLITICO This is where we explore the ideas and innovators shaping health care.  Wikipedia editors have formed a clean-up collaboration to fight back against "unsourced, poorly-written AI-generated content" that's infiltrated the site, 404 Media reports. Share any thoughts, news, tips and feedback with Carmen Paun at cpaun@politico.com, Daniel Payne at dpayne@politico.com, Ruth Reader at rreader@politico.com, or Erin Schumaker at eschumaker@politico.com. Send tips securely through SecureDrop, Signal, Telegram or WhatsApp.  WORLDVIEW Hundreds of millions of people globally are traumatized by sexual violence they experienced during childhood, the United Nations organization tasked with protecting children’s rights said in its first global estimate of the phenomenon. More than 370 million girls and women alive today — or 1 in 8 — experienced rape or sexual assault before turning 18, UNICEF said in a report Wednesday. When other forms of sexual violence are included, such as online or verbal abuse, the percentage rises to 1 in 5 women globally who have experienced it as children, the organization says. Why it matters: “Sexual violence against children is a stain on our moral conscience,” said Catherine Russell, UNICEF’s executive director. Survivors are at higher risk of sexually transmitted disease, substance abuse, social isolation, and mental health issues, according to UNICEF. Where it happens: Everywhere, but the prevalence is highest in low-income countries, where 1 in 4 women experienced rape or sexual assault during childhood, according to the report. High-income countries come second: about 15 percent of women living there experienced it, followed by middle-income countries, where 11 percent of women survived a rape or sexual assault. Regionally, sub-Saharan Africa has the highest number of women who experienced sexual violence as children: 79 million, followed by eastern and southeastern Asia, with 75 million, and central and southern Asia, with 73 million. Most sexual violence occurs during adolescence, according to the data UNICEF gathered from some 200 countries. Since many people do not report sexual violence due to stigma or shame, the numbers are thought to be an underestimate of how pervasive the phenomenon is globally. And although sexual violence affects girls and women more, and their experiences are better documented, boys and men are also affected, the report shows. Around 1 in 11 boys and men have experienced rape or sexual assault during childhood. What’s next? Government officials from around the world will meet to discuss the issue at a conference in Bogota, Colombia next month. Meanwhile, UNICEF called for global action to: — Challenge and change social norms that allow sexual violence to occur and that discourage children from seeking help — Teach children in an age-appropriate way how to recognize and report sexual violence — Ensure access to justice and healing for every victim to reduce the risk of further harm — Strengthen laws to protect children from all forms of sexual violence — Build better national data systems to track the phenomenon and ensure accountability CHECKUP They're called cancer sticks for a reason. | Getty Images Reducing smoking rates could increase global life expectancy and prevent the premature death of millions of people by 2050, while eliminating smoking among young people could prevent more than 1 million lung cancer deaths, according to new research. How’s that? An international study published in The Lancet Public Health by researchers at the University of Washington in Seattle, among dozens of other institutions, suggests that decreasing tobacco smoking worldwide to 5 percent by 2050 could increase global life expectancy by one year among men and by 0.2 years among women, our team in Europe reports. A second study in the same journal from researchers in France, Spain and other countries suggests that banning the sale of tobacco products to young people could prevent millions of lung cancer deaths across the world, with the biggest gains in low- and middle-income countries. That would also be a boon to health systems, said study author Julia Rey Brandariz of Spain’s University of Santiago de Compostela. “Not only could this save huge numbers of lives, it could massively reduce the strain on health systems of treating and caring for people in ill health as a result of smoking,” she said. Even so: Based on current trends, smoking rates will decline to 21.1 percent of men and 4.2 percent of women in 2050 (compared with 28.5 percent of men and 6 percent of women in 2022).   Follow us on Twitter Carmen Paun @carmenpaun Daniel Payne @_daniel_payne Ruth Reader @RuthReader Erin Schumaker @erinlschumaker   Follow us

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