Table 1.
Study Eligibility Criteria.
Table 2.
Summary of Evidence Reviewed Categorized by Inflammatory and Antiviral Outcomes.
Table 3.
Technical details on the interpretations for effect size (ES).
Figure 1.
Literature Search and Study Selection. Legends:
CD4 = cluster of differentiation 4 protein; CRP = c-reactive protein; IL-6 = interleukin-6; INF-γ = Interferon-gamma; NK count = natural killer cell count; TNF-α = Tumor necrosis factor. aThe studies were conducted in 9 countries (United States, China, India, Australia, Spain, Germany, Iran, Norway, and the United Kingdom). bThe sum of study number exceeds the total number of studies included due to some studies reported multiple outcomes across categories.
Table 4.
Study characteristics of the 34 randomized controlled trials evaluating the effects of mind-body therapies on the immune system.
Figure 2.
Meta-analysis of RCTs comparing the effect of mind-body therapies with control interventions on inflammatory markers: CRP (panel a), IL-6 (panel b), and TNF-α (panel c). Legends:
CRP = c-reactive protein; IL-6 = interleukin 6; Med = meditation; QG = Qi Gong; TC = Tai Chi; TNF-α = Tumor necrosis factor; Tx = treatment; RA = rheumatoid arthritis; SMD = standardized mean difference. Risk of bias: L = low; M = medium; H = high (see Table S2 for details). Zautra 2008 reported only subgroup results (grp 1 = RA patients with depression; grp 2 = RA patients without depression) and data from each subgroup were entered in the meta-analysis separately. P-values adjacent to I-squared results are p-values for heterogeneity testing (P<0.05 indicates significant heterogeneity), and p-values adjacent to meta-analysis pooled results (diamonds) are p-values for the pooled effect sizes.
Figure 3.
Subgroup meta-analysis of RCTs comparing the effect of mind-body therapies with control interventions on CRP and IL-6 by clinical populations (panels a and b), by MBT types (panels c and d), and by control types (panels e and f). Legends:
SMD = standardized mean difference. MBT = mind-body therapies. P-values adjacent to I-squared results are p-values for heterogeneity testing (P<0.05 indicates significant heterogeneity and “I-squared = n/a” indicates that there was only 1 study in the subgroup so heterogeneity was not applicable), and p-values adjacent to meta-analysis pooled results (diamonds) are p-values for the pooled effect sizes.
Figure 4.
Meta-analysis of RCTs comparing the effect of mind-body therapies with control interventions on enumerative markers: CD4 count (panel a) and NK count (panel b). Legends:
CD4 = cluster of differentiation 4 protein; Med = meditation; NK count = natural killer cell count; Tx = treatment; SMD = standardized mean.