Epigenetic clock analysis in long-term meditators.


Author: Chaix R1, Alvarez-López MJ2, Fagny M3, Lemee L4, Regnault B4, Davidson RJ5, Lutz A6, Kaliman P7

Affiliation: <sup>1</sup>Eco-Anthropologie et Ethnobiologie, UMR 7206 CNRS, MNHN, Univ Paris Diderot, Sorbonne Paris Cité, France. Electronic address: raphaelle.chaix@mnhn.fr.

<sup>2</sup>Unitat de Farmacologia, Facultat de Farmàcia, Institut de Biomedicina, Universitat de Barcelona (IBUB), Nucli Universitari de Pedralbes, Barcelone, 08028, Spain.

<sup>3</sup>Department of Biostatistics and Computational Biology, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Boston, MA, 02115, USA; Department of Biostatistics, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, MA, 02115, USA.

<sup>4</sup>Plateforme de génotypage des eucaryotes, Biomics, CITECH, Institut Pasteur, 75015 Paris, France.

<sup>5</sup>Center for Healthy Minds, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 53703, USA.

<sup>6</sup>Lyon Neuroscience Research Center, INSERM U1028, CNRS UMR5292, Lyon 1 University, 69500 Lyon, France.

<sup>7</sup>Center for Mind and Brain, University of California Davis, Davis, CA 95618, USA. Electronic address: pkaliman@ucdavis.edu.
Conference/Journal: Psychoneuroendocrinology.
Date published: 2017 Aug 31
Other:
 Volume ID: 85   ,  Pages: 210-214   ,  Special Notes: doi: 10.1016/j.psyneuen.2017.08.016. [Epub ahead of print]   ,  Word Count: 194  
    In this paper, we examined whether meditation practice influences the epigenetic clock, a strong and reproducible biomarker of biological aging, which is accelerated by cumulative lifetime stress and with age-related chronic diseases. Using the Illumina 450K array platform, we analyzed the DNA methylome from blood cells of long-term meditators and meditation-naïve controls to estimate their Intrinsic Epigenetic Age Acceleration (IEAA), using Horvath's calculator. IEAA was similar in both groups. However, controls showed a different IEAA trajectory with aging than meditators: older controls (age≥52) had significantly higher IEAAs compared with younger controls (age <52), while meditators were protected from this epigenetic aging effect. Notably, in the meditation group, we found a significant negative correlation between IEAA and the number of years of regular meditation practice. From our results, we hypothesize that the cumulative effects of a regular meditation practice may, in the long-term, help to slow the epigenetic clock and could represent a useful preventive strategy for age-related chronic diseases. Longitudinal randomized controlled trials in larger cohorts are warranted to confirm and further characterize these findings.



Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.



KEYWORDS: Biological aging; Blood; Epigenetics; Methylation; Mindfulness; Stress



PMID: 28889075  DOI: 10.1016/j.psyneuen.2017.08.016