From left: Eric Schadt, PhD; Leena Nasser, Executive Director, Chopra Institute; Deepak Chopra, MD; Dennis S. Charney, MD; Ash Tewari, MBBS, MCh; and David L. Reich, MD.
Can meditation and other forms of alternative medicine be used in conjunction with traditional treatments to improve overall physiological and psychological health and well-being? This was a topic for brainstorming between best-selling author Deepak Chopra, MD, and basic science researchers and physician-scientists who attended a meeting hosted by Ash Tewari, MBBS, MCh, the Kyung Hyun Kim, MD Chair in Urology, Mount Sinai Health System.
The researchers, who were from the Department of Urology at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, joined Dr. Chopra, a pioneer in integrative medicine and co-founder of the Chopra Center for Wellbeing, to discuss their mutual interest in the study of the mind-body connection. Also attending were: Dennis S. Charney, MD, Anne and Joel Ehrenkranz Dean, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, and President for Academic Affairs, Mount Sinai Health System; David L. Reich, MD, President and Chief Operating Officer, The Mount Sinai Hospital; and Eric Schadt, PhD, Dean for Precision Medicine, and the Jean C. and James W. Crystal Professor of Genomics.
One topic they explored was to study, in a clinical setting, whether mind-body intervention through meditation and other practices such as yoga reduces inflammation and thus prostate cancer progression. In 2016, Dr. Schadt led a study with researchers from the University of California, San Francisco, and Harvard Medical School that assessed the biological impact of meditation. The study, which appeared in Translational Psychiatry and was partially funded by the Chopra Center for Wellbeing, found that meditation could ease stress and benefit the immune system.