[Reafnartefs]

Anyway, someone mentioned to me that meditation can bring about bad effects too, and that the lack of breathing can even lead to extensive brain damage and cellular destruction... (this, I did not know)

Is this specifically Buddhist meditation you've been investigating, Balgore... or just meditation in general ? As for "lack of breathing," I'm wondering where that came from ?

If you Google 'bad effects' of anything on the internet you're probably likely to get lots of negative results !

In the UK, Mindfulness Based Cognitive Therapy, which includes meditation(based on Buddhist meditation) as part of the programme, is available for referral on the NHS as a treatment for depression ...so meditation can hardly be considered dangerous by the medical profession.

"Based on Jon Kabat Zinn’s Stress Reduction program at the University of Massachusetts Medical Center, Mindfulness-based Cognitive Therapy includes simple breathing meditations and yoga stretches to help participants become more aware of the present moment, including getting in touch with moment-to-moment changes in the mind and the body.
In eight weekly classes (the atmosphere is that of a class, rather then a therapy group), and by listening to tapes at home during the week, class participants learn the practice of mindfulness meditation."

http://cebmh.warne.ox.ac.uk/csr/mbct.html