Spiritual practices may seem worlds apart from biomedical research, with its focus on molecular processes and reproducible results. However, on the campus of the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), a team led by a Nobel Prize-winning biochemist ventured into territory that few conventional scientists would have dared to explore.
While Western biomedicine has traditionally avoided studying personal experiences and emotions related to physical health, these scientists are placing state of mind at the center of their work. They are involved in serious studies suggesting that meditation may—as Eastern traditions have long claimed—slow the aging process and extend life.
Elizabeth Blackburn has always been fascinated by how life works. Born in 1948, she grew up by the sea in a remote town in Tasmania, Australia, collecting ants from her garden and jellyfish from the beach. When she began her scientific career, she turned to dissecting the molecules of living systems. According to Blackburn, biochemistry became her passion because it offered a complete and precise understanding "through a profound knowledge of the smallest possible subunit of a process."
Working with biologist Joe Gall at Yale during the 1970s, Blackburn sequenced the ends of the chromosomes of a single-celled freshwater organism called Tetrahymena ("pond scum", as she describes it) and discovered a repeating DNA sequence that functions as a protective cap. These caps, later named telomeres, were subsequently found in human chromosomes as well. They protect the ends of our chromosomes each time our cells divide and DNA is copied, but they gradually wear down with every cell division.
During the 1980s, while working with graduate student Carol Greider at the University of California, Berkeley, Blackburn discovered an enzyme called telomerase that can protect and rebuild telomeres. Even so, our telomeres shorten over time. And when they become too short, our cells begin to malfunction and lose their ability to divide—a phenomenon now recognized as one of the key processes involved in aging. This work ultimately earned Blackburn the 2009 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.
In 2000, she received a visit that changed the course of her research. The visitor was Elissa Epel, a postdoctoral researcher in the Department of Psychiatry at UCSF. Epel was interested in the damage that chronic stress causes to the body, and she had a radical proposal.
Epel, director of the UCSF Center for Aging, Metabolism, and Emotions, had long been interested in the relationship between the mind and the body. She cites both holistic health advocate Deepak Chopra and pioneering biologist Hans Selye as influences. Selye was the first, in the 1930s, to describe how rats exposed to long-term stress become chronically ill. "Every stress leaves an indelible scar, and the organism pays for its survival after a stressful situation by becoming a little older," Selye said.
In 2000, Epel wanted to find that scar."I was interested in the idea that if we looked deeply inside cells, we might be able to measure the wear and tear caused by stress and everyday life," she said. After reading Blackburn's work on aging, she wondered whether telomeres might provide that answer.
Nervous about approaching such an accomplished scientist, the postdoctoral researcher asked Blackburn for help with a study involving mothers experiencing one of the most stressful situations Epel could imagine: caring for a chronically ill child. Epel's plan was to ask the women how stressed they felt and then look for a relationship between their psychological state and the condition of their telomeres. Collaborators at the University of Utah measured telomere length, while Blackburn's team measured telomerase levels.
Until then, Blackburn's research had involved precisely controlled laboratory experiments. Epel's work, on the other hand, focused on real people living complex lives. "It was another world, just as I expected," Blackburn recalls. At first, she doubted it would be possible to observe any meaningful connection between stress and telomeres. Genes were considered the primary factor determining telomere length, and the idea that environmental influences—let alone psychological ones—could be measured and linked to telomere length was highly controversial. But as a mother herself, Blackburn was drawn to studying the circumstances of these stressed women.
"I just thought, how interesting," she says. "You can't help but feel empathy."
It took four years before the researchers were finally ready to collect blood samples from 58 women. This would be a small pilot study. To maximize the chances of obtaining meaningful results, the women in both groups—stressed mothers and control participants—had to be matched as closely as possible in terms of age, lifestyle, and background. Epel recruited her participants with meticulous care. Even so, Blackburn says she viewed the study as nothing more than a feasibility exercise. Until Epel called her and said: "You're not going to believe this."
The results were unmistakable. The more stressed the mothers reported feeling, the shorter their telomeres were, and the lower their telomerase levels. The most exhausted women in the study had telomeres corresponding to approximately a decade or more of additional biological aging compared with those who reported lower stress levels, while their telomerase levels were reduced by half. "I was thrilled," Blackburn says. She and Epel had connected real lives and real experiences to the molecular machinery operating inside cells.
It was the first indication that feeling chronically stressed does not merely harm our health — it literally ages us.
Many telomere researchers were cautious at first. They pointed out that the study was small and questioned the accuracy of the telomere length test used. "It was a risky idea at the time and, in some people's eyes, an unlikely one," Epel explains. "Everyone is born with very different telomere lengths, and to think that we could measure something psychological or behavioral—not genetic—and have it predict the length of our telomeres? That's really not where this field was ten years ago."
The paper sparked an explosion of research. Since then, researchers have linked perceived stress to shorter telomeres not only in healthy women but also in Alzheimer's caregivers, survivors of domestic abuse, individuals who experienced early-life trauma, people with major depression, and those with post-traumatic stress disorder. "Ten years later, there is no doubt that the environment has some impact on telomere length," says Mary Armanios, a physician and geneticist at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and an expert in telomere disorders.
Researchers have also made progress in understanding the biological mechanism behind these findings. Laboratory studies show that the stress hormone cortisol reduces telomerase activity, while oxidative stress and inflammation—both physiological consequences of psychological stress—appear to directly erode telomeres.
This appears to have profound consequences for our health. Age-related conditions ranging from osteoarthritis, diabetes, and obesity to heart disease, Alzheimer's disease, and stroke have all been associated with shorter telomeres.
The major question researchers are now trying to answer is whether telomeres are simply a harmless marker of age-related damage—like gray hair, for example—or whether they actively contribute to the health problems that develop as we grow older. People with genetic mutations affecting the enzyme telomerase, who have telomeres that are much shorter than normal, develop accelerated aging syndromes, and their organs progressively fail. However, Armanios questions whether the smaller reductions in telomere length caused by stress are truly significant for human health, particularly because telomere length naturally varies considerably from one person to another.
Nevertheless, as evidence of the damage associated with telomere shortening continues to grow, researchers have begun asking a new question: how can telomeres be protected? "Ten years ago, if you had told me I would be seriously thinking about meditation, I would have said one of us was crazy," Blackburn told The New York Times in 2007. Yet that is precisely where her telomere research has led her. Since her initial study with Epel, the two researchers have collaborated with teams from around the world—between 50 and 60, by Blackburn's estimate—exploring what she describes as "wonderful directions". Many of these collaborations focus on ways to protect telomeres from the effects of stress. Clinical studies suggest that regular exercise, healthy eating habits, and strong social support all help preserve telomere health. But one of the most effective interventions, apparently capable of slowing telomere erosion—and perhaps even increasing telomere length once again—is meditation.
Theories differ regarding how meditation may influence telomeres and telomerase, but the most likely explanation is that it reduces stress. Meditation typically involves slow, steady breathing, which can physically relax the body by calming the fight-or-flight response. It also appears to produce a psychological stress-reducing effect. Learning to step back from negative or stressful thoughts allows us to recognize that they are not necessarily accurate reflections of reality, but rather temporary and fleeting mental events. Meditation also encourages us to appreciate the present moment instead of constantly dwelling on the past or worrying about the future.
Inevitably, when a Nobel Prize winner begins talking about meditation, it raises eyebrows. Overall, however, Blackburn's careful and methodical approach has earned cautious respect, even among researchers who remain skeptical of health claims associated with complementary and alternative medicine. "She goes about her work in a cautious and systematic way," says Edzard Ernst of the University of Exeter in the United Kingdom, a specialist in evaluating complementary therapies through rigorous controlled clinical trials. James Coyne, an oncologist at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, who is generally skeptical of this field and has described some positive psychology and health research as "morally offensive" and "tooth fairy science," nevertheless acknowledges that some of Blackburn's findings are "promising."
In a study involving 239 healthy women, Blackburn found that those whose minds wandered less—the primary goal of mindfulness meditation—had significantly longer telomeres than women whose thoughts wandered more frequently. "Although we report only an association here, it is possible that greater mindfulness promotes a healthier biochemical environment and, in turn, cellular longevity," the researchers concluded. Contemplative traditions ranging from Buddhism to Taoism have long held that mindfulness promotes health and longevity. Blackburn and her colleagues now suggest that this ancient wisdom may have been right all along.
Source: Jo Marchant for Mosaic Science.
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Article updated in July 2026.
