How Meditation Connects With Immune and Gut Health
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The relationship between mental well-being and physical health runs in both directions. Dr. Richard Davidson explains how meditation research investigates that connection through immune responses, inflammatory markers, and the gut microbiome. In an early randomized workplace study, healthy employees who completed an eight-week mindfulness program showed a greater rise in antibodies after influenza vaccination than a waitlist group. Researchers also measured changes in brain electrical activity, linking mental training with an observable immune response in this small trial. [1]
Dr. Davidson also discusses newer app-based research examining IL-6, a marker of inflammation, and microbial pathways related to butyrate. He describes a 28-day Healthy Minds Program that devotes one week each to awareness, connection, insight, and purpose, with participants practicing about five minutes daily on average. This approach makes consistency a central part of the intervention. He also distinguishes the program tested as a whole from the possibility that individual practices might work differently for different people, an important question for understanding how mental training produces biological effects.
The conversation with Dr. Rhonda Patrick turns to why butyrate matters. Gut microbes produce this short-chain fatty acid when they ferment dietary fiber. In mouse and cell experiments, butyrate promotes the development of regulatory T cells, which help control immune responses. Other mechanistic experiments show how its metabolism supports signaling that maintains the intestinal barrier. These findings give biological context to research on meditation and the microbiome, while keeping the microbial pathways distinct from clinical outcomes. Dr. Davidson's practical emphasis remains regular training of attention, connection, and purpose. [2] [3]
- ^ Davidson RJ; Kabat-Zinn J; Schumacher J; Rosenkranz M; Muller D; Santorelli SF, et al. (2003). Alterations in brain and immune function produced by mindfulness meditation. Psychosom Med 65, 4.
- ^ Furusawa Y; Obata Y; Fukuda S; Endo TA; Nakato G; Takahashi D, et al. (2013). Commensal microbe-derived butyrate induces the differentiation of colonic regulatory T cells. Nature 504, 7480.
- ^ Kelly CJ; Zheng L; Campbell EL; Saeedi B; Scholz CC; Bayless AJ, et al. (2015). Crosstalk between Microbiota-Derived Short-Chain Fatty Acids and Intestinal Epithelial HIF Augments Tissue Barrier Function. Cell Host Microbe 17, 5.
Dr. Rhonda Patrick: So, you mentioned meditation, and I've seen some of your research as well showing that people that are engaging in, I would guess, a more—not 5 minutes, but it's a little more of an intense type of meditation. I don't remember the exact amount, if it's 30 minutes or what, but they were able to change their biology, their immune system. So, people were having a better immune response to vaccines, for example. Epigenetic changes that your research has identified to occur with meditation. How is that mind able to change the body physiologically like that? I mean, it's very interesting.
Dr. Richard Davidson: Yeah, it is. We're beginning to learn about the very specific mechanistic pathways through which the mind and the brain interact with the body, and the first thing to say is that it's bidirectional. And so it's not just the mind influencing the body, it's also the body influencing the mind. We know, for example, there are 200 million neurons in the gut. They've got to be doing something important. And they are feeding information to the brain continuously. And so there are bidirectional pathways that are going on all the time.
These pathways are really important because they begin to provide some mechanistic cues for why it is that well-being and physical health are correlated. And so, in large epidemiological studies, and the best example of this is there are a series of studies that have come from looking at British civil servants. These are known as the Whitehall studies in the UK, with tens of thousands of people, and in that work, there is a very clear association between levels of well-being and metrics related to physical health. Now, that's just a correlation, and so we don't know causally what's causing what. And it could be that people who are physically healthier have higher levels of well-being. It could be the reverse, and it likely is both and complicated.
But what we do know is that if you train the mind using meditation, and you do it in a rigorous randomized controlled type of trial where you can draw causal inferences, we can see that training the mind produces changes in the body. We've seen that in the study that you alluded to with responses to a flu vaccine. People who meditate actually show a healthier, a more robust response to the flu vaccine that we can measure with antibody titers.
And I should say, you mentioned earlier that maybe this requires a little bit more meditation, like 30 minutes a day. Actually, it doesn't. There is new data that we have showing, again, 5 minutes a day for 28 days. This prescription is sufficient to produce a significant decrease in IL-6, which is a pro-inflammatory cytokine, which is really an important marker of inflammation in the body. And we've shown in a large randomized controlled trial that on average 5 minutes a day, if you do it for 28 days, is sufficient to produce a significant decrease in IL-6, and that measure of IL-6 is 3 months after the formal trial ends, compared to a group that was untreated. And so this is very encouraging, and it suggests that we can make these changes quite readily.
Dr. Rhonda Patrick: Does the type of meditation matter? Can it be as simple as what we've been discussing, like awareness on your body or this compassion? I'm calling it compassion, please—
Dr. Richard Davidson: Yeah, no, it is compassion, yeah.
Dr. Rhonda Patrick: Okay, but—
Dr. Richard Davidson: So, in our app, the Healthy Minds Program, we teach people each of the four pillars of well-being: awareness, connection, insight, and purpose. We have them devote a week to each. And it's this 28-day program where we've seen these changes. It's likely that for different kinds of people, it may be that one or another pillar may resonate more strongly with them, and you may see changes with just one or two pillars. And so it's quite possible that you can see changes really easily with just these one or two pillars. We don't know that at this point in time. But what we do know is that it doesn't take much to produce these changes if you do this consistently.
Dr. Rhonda Patrick: That's amazing, and I want to get back into the gut microbiome again because there's so much—
Dr. Richard Davidson: Also seen microbiome changes with just 5 minutes a day.
Dr. Rhonda Patrick: Oh, with just 5 minutes?
Dr. Richard Davidson: Yeah, but again, 5 minutes a day for 2—
Dr. Rhonda Patrick: Consistency is the key.
Dr. Richard Davidson: Yeah.
Dr. Rhonda Patrick: Okay. Well, I mean, I guess since we're talking about the gut, we might as well just talk about it, and then I'll go back to some other things I wanted to talk about. The gut stuff is interesting, and I like how you tied that into the immune question because I know that there are certain types of bacteria in the gut that will ferment our prebiotic fibers, and they'll make these certain short-chain fatty acids like acetate, butyrate, propionate. And those get into circulation and act as signaling molecules to our immune system. I know one thing they're very important to doing is increasing the number of T regulatory cells, helping with autoimmune responses so you're not having a hyper-autoimmune response. But, I mean, clearly the gut is related to the immune system.
Dr. Richard Davidson: Yes.
Dr. Rhonda Patrick: Very intimately and connected. So, with respect to the microbiome, earlier research I'd seen, your lab had, or you were involved in this research where meditation was shown to directly impact certain species of the gut microbiome directly. Do you know what species those were, and were they these probiotic, beneficial types of bacteria?
Dr. Richard Davidson: So, what we, in very recent work, and we're working with a major leader in understanding the microbiome who is at the University of Wisconsin, a scientist by the name of Jo Handelsman. What we see is changes in the butyrate pathway, and these species are particularly important in sealing the gut lining. And so we see widespread changes in the butyrate pathway, and again, it's in this randomized controlled trial with on average 5 minutes a day of meditation. And this is a trial involving roughly 1,200 moderately depressed people that were recruited from every state in the United States, literally all 50 states. A sample of approximately 1,200 people. And all of them provided stool samples before and then 3 months after the intervention so that we can look within person at pre versus post changes in the microbiome. And over the course of this 3-month period, we see these changes with this really moderate dose of meditation.
Dr. Rhonda Patrick: That's incredible. 5 minutes. I mean, I know exercise has been shown to also increase butyrate-producing bacteria. And you mentioned it's very important for sealing the gut. I mean, it does play a very big role in helping prevent gut permeability, which is huge. I mean, there are studies, like, huge for depression, inflammation, cardiovascular disease. I mean, everything. It's a whole range—
Dr. Richard Davidson: Exactly.
Dr. Rhonda Patrick: Whole range. I mean, it's everything you can—Alzheimer's disease. I mean, it just keeps going and going.
Dr. Richard Davidson: Yeah, yeah.
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