Zuniga-Hertz Juan P, Chitteti Ramamurthy, Dispenza Joe, Cuomo Raphael, Bonds Jacqueline A, Kopp Elena L, Simpson Sierra, Okerblom Jonathan, Maurya Svetlana, Rana Brinda K, Miyonahara Atsushi, Niesman Ingrid R, Maree Jacqueline, Belza Gianna, Hamilton Hillari D, Stanton Carla, Gonzalez David J, Poirier Michelle A, Moeller-Bertram Tobias, Patel Hemal H
Veterans Affairs San Diego Healthcare System, 3350 La Jolla Village Drive, San Diego, CA, 92161, USA.
Department of Anesthesiology, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, CA, 92093, USA.
Brain Behav Immun Health. 2023 Aug 7;32:100675. doi: 10.1016/j.bbih.2023.100675. eCollection 2023 Oct.
The COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in significant morbidity and mortality worldwide. Management of the pandemic has relied mainly on SARS-CoV-2 vaccines, while alternative approaches such as meditation, shown to improve immunity, have been largely unexplored. Here, we probe the relationship between meditation and COVID-19 disease and directly test the impact of meditation on the induction of a blood environment that modulates viral infection. We found a significant inverse correlation between length of meditation practice and SARS-CoV-2 infection as well as accelerated resolution of symptomology of those infected. A meditation "dosing" effect was also observed. In cultured human lung cells, blood from experienced meditators induced factors that prevented entry of pseudotyped viruses for SARS-CoV-2 spike protein of both the wild-type Wuhan-1 virus and the Delta variant. We identified and validated SERPINA5, a serine protease inhibitor, as one possible protein factor in the blood of meditators that is necessary and sufficient for limiting pseudovirus entry into cells. In summary, we conclude that meditation can enhance resiliency to viral infection and may serve as a possible adjuvant therapy in the management of the COVID-19 pandemic.
新冠疫情已在全球范围内导致了严重的发病和死亡情况。疫情的管控主要依赖于新冠病毒疫苗，而诸如冥想这类被证明能增强免疫力的替代方法在很大程度上尚未得到充分探索。在此，我们探究冥想与新冠疾病之间的关系，并直接测试冥想对诱导调节病毒感染的血液环境的影响。我们发现冥想练习时长与新冠病毒感染之间存在显著的负相关，且感染人群的症状缓解加速。还观察到了冥想的“剂量”效应。在培养的人肺细胞中，有经验的冥想者的血液诱导产生了一些因子，这些因子可阻止野生型武汉 - 1病毒和德尔塔变种的新冠病毒刺突蛋白假型病毒进入细胞。我们鉴定并验证了丝氨酸蛋白酶抑制剂SERPINA5是冥想者血液中一种可能的蛋白质因子，它对于限制假病毒进入细胞是必要且充分的。总之，我们得出结论，冥想可以增强对病毒感染的抵抗力，并可能作为新冠疫情管控中的一种辅助治疗方法。
