other health-related conditions. An often-cited meta-analysis on meditation research published in JAMA in 2014, found insufficient evidence of any effect of meditation programs on positive mood, attention, substance use, eating habits, sleep, and weight, but found that there is moderate evidence that meditation reduces anxiety, depression, and pain. However, this study included a highly heterogeneous group of meditation styles (i.e., it did not focus exclusively on mindfulness meditation), which is a significant limitation of this study. Additionally, while mindfulness is well known to have positive psychological effect among individuals diagnosed with various types of cancers, the evidence is unclear regarding its effectiveness in men with prostate cancer. Thousands of studies on meditation have been conducted, though the methodological quality of some of the studies is poor. Recent reviews have pointed out many of these issues. Nonetheless, mindfulness meditation is a popular subject for research, and many present potential benefits for a wide array of conditions and outcomes. For example, the practice of mindfulness has also been used to improve athletic performance, as a beneficial intervention for children with special needs and their caregivers, as a viable treatment option for people with insomnia an effective intervention for healthy aging, as a strategy for managing dermatological conditions and as a useful intervention during pregnancy and the perinatal period. Recent studies have also demonstrated that mindfulness meditation significantly attenuates physical pain through multiple, unique mechanisms. Meditation also may allow one to modulate pain. When exposed to pain from heating, the brain scans of the mindfulness meditation participants (by use of functional magnetic resonance imaging) showed their brains notice the pain equally, however it does not get converted to a perceived pain signal. As such they experienced up to 40–50% less pain. Further, mindfulness meditation also appears to lead to increased telomere length, which is an important finding considering that short telomeres can be a risk factor for the development of several chronic health conditions. Research has also investigated mindful movements and mindful exercises for different patient populations. Mindfulness-based approaches are a major subject of increasing research interest, 52 papers were published in 2003, rising to 477 by 2012. Nearly 100 randomized controlled trials had been published by early 2014. Neurological studies Research studies have also focused on the effects of mindfulness on the brain using neuroimaging techniques, physiological measures and behavioral tests. Research on the neural perspective of how mindfulness meditation works suggests